


Building Fences Out of Tense Moments

by PersephonesNauticalNun



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Other, Trans Character, ftm!Quinn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:14:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4084549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersephonesNauticalNun/pseuds/PersephonesNauticalNun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How could someone like Quinn Fabray suffer from gender dysphoria?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Plasticine

**Author's Note:**

> Epic Author’s Note is Epic: Alright, so I have a lot to cover, but I’ll try to move through it quickly so that I can keep the ANs to a minimum during the actual story. This is, hands down, the most ambitious fic I've ever attempted, and I am both excited and terrified to share it with you.
> 
> Conception: The first time I was faced with the idea of ftm!Quinn, my kneejerk response was, “That’s absurd.” And then I thought about it and said, “Eh, maybe not.” However, most of what I’ve seen has either not been written particularly well, or lacked the exploration that I really would have liked to see. For this reason, this fic can largely be seen as my response to the question, “How could someone like Quinn Fabray suffer gender dysphoria?” The answer to this question is a complicated one, and that is reflected in the writing of this. This means that I spend quite a bit of time laying down the necessary groundwork to make a gender transition believable and justifiable. For this reason, this is necessarily going to be a long one; settle in, we’re going to be here a while. Structurally speaking, you’ve seen most of these plot devices before (abusive Fabray family, Quinn’s pregnancy drama, Rachel as safe house), but I’m putting them together to create something completely different. In this way, this can largely be seen as a Found Male Quest Narrative, and while it won’t necessarily read this way all of the time, it is, in fact, AU. Chapters will be as long as necessary. If my outline is anything to go by, they’ll vary pretty dramatically.
> 
> This Narrative is Informed By: Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Helene Cixous, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, Eve Sedgwick, Adrienne Rich, and Jessica Valenti.
> 
> Last, but so very far from least, I'd like to send one huge shout out to the insightful and talented dgronison for acting as both a sounding board and a guinea pig. This fic would be a shadow of itself without her input.

_Lucy swung her legs freely off the edge of the top bunk as the corner of the dorm room slowly filled with boxes containing her sister's belongings. Lucy had done her part by bringing in the smaller and lighter items, but what remained was far too heavy for any eight-year-old. Since being useful was no longer an option, she knew her best course of action was to stay out of the way, and it seemed to be working pretty well._

_She found Chocolate--a dark brown teddy bear just small enough to fit in her hands that she only remembered every living on Frannie's bed--in one of the first few boxes she carried in, and when it became apparent that she was no longer going to be useful to the moving endeavor, she tucked him under her arm and climbed up to the top bunk to keep her company while she waited until it was time to go home._

_Her dad and her sister were carrying a sizable mini-fridge into the room while her mother pretended to direct them, though she at least fulfilled her "useful" requirement by opening and closing doors. Her dad said something about boys, but Lucy only caught the end of it and couldn't find the context._

_"I know, Dad, I know," Fran said and set her end of the fridge down on the floor so her dad could lean his forward and stand it up. "I promise I won't get distracted."_

_"Just remember what you're here for," her father said before he walked around the appliance between them and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder._

_"I'm here to study," Fran said like it was a familiar mantra with a firm nod of her head._

_"And be careful about the kind of people you associate with," her dad added. "This is Los Angeles. It's not like Elizabeth."_

_Lucy grinned as she watched Frannie suppress an eye-roll._

_"I know," Fran said. "The wrong network could wreck my future. Dad, you raised me well. Just trust me."_

_The appeal to his paternal brilliance was the magic key, because he just smiled widely at her and wrapped her in a rare hug._

_"I'm proud of you," he said when he pulled away. They were words that Lucy heard a lot directed toward Fran, but the most Lucy ever got was an occasional, "good job."_

_"Thanks," Fran said and stepped around her father and into her mother's waiting arms._

_"I love you," her mom said as she held her first daughter. "Please be careful."_

_"I love you, too, Mom. And I will."_

_"Well," Russell said roughly with a clap of his hands, effectively killing the mood. "We've got a plane to catch," he reminded them, glancing at his watch. "Walk us back to the car?"_

_"Of course, Dad."_

_He finally turned his attention to his youngest daughter on top of the bunk beds. "Come on, Lucy; it's time to go."_

_"Okay," she said quietly and started making her way toward the foot of the bed where the ladder was._

_"What was that?"_

_"Yes, sir," she said more clearly, stepping down onto the floor._

_"Actually, Dad, do you think Lucy and I could meet you guys out there?" Fran asked, catching Lucy's eye._

_"We don't have time for that," Russell said as he tapped his watch in frustration._

_"Oh, come on," Judy said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Let them have their sister goodbye."_

_Russell made an unpleasant sound in the back of his throat and stormed out, but they all knew that was as flexible as he was willing to be._

_"Be quick," Judy said to Fran, and then stepped outside, closing the door behind her._

_"Hey, Luce," Fran said when they were left alone. She sat on the edge of the bed so she was closer to eye level with her younger sister. "I see you found Chocolate," she said, pointing to the bear still in Lucy's hands._

_"Yeah," Lucy said with a nod and thrust the bear back toward her sister._

_Fran took the bear from Lucy and held it delicately by its arms in her fingertips. She looked at it contemplatively for a few short moments before focusing again on her sister._

_"I know you don't get along very well with Dad," Fran said finally, and Lucy dropped her eyes to the dull grey carpet beneath her feet. "And I'm not going to be there, anymore."_

_"I know," Lucy said, her eyes meeting Fran's blue ones._

_"So," Fran started, and she seemed to be struggling with her next words. "You might have to try a little harder from now on, to do what he wants," she finally said. "Do you think you could do that?"_

_Lucy blinked thoughtfully and then nodded._

_"Good," Fran said, smiling. She held Chocolate out to Lucy and asked, "Do you think you could look after him while I'm busy studying?"_

_Lucy nodded again, with more enthusiasm as a smile spread across her lips. "I could do that," she said as she took the bear back from her sister._

_"Thanks. You're doing me a big favor," Fran said conspiratorially as she leaned toward Lucy, who just rolled her eyes._

_Fran's smile grew and she wrapped her arms around her sister, hugging her tightly before standing up from the bed._

_"Alright, Squirt," she said, heading to the door. "Better get going before Dad has a heart attack."_

_Lucy purposefully walked slower than usual as the two made their way to the parking lot to meet their parents._

*****

"Quinn."

She tests out the name in her mouth, savoring the way it rolls over her tongue. It's heavy and thick, and the harsh sound of the Q contrasts so deliciously against the liquidity that follows and gives it that biting edge so necessary that without it, her name would feel like pudding.

It's perfect, really. It's uncommon enough to raise intrigue without tipping over into absurd and off-putting territory, and it's exactly the kind of name that the someone she is now would have.

She's Quinn Fabray--new student at McKinley High, home of the nation's top ranking cheerleading squad, which she'll be a part of if this day goes even slightly according to plan--and she has every intention of running the school by the time she graduates. She'll be a legend.

She knows this won't be easy. She has no delusions of grandeur. She knows she'll have to hang back for a while; she'll have to prove herself before she can begin her climb to the top--it's what she took an extra year after the surgery to prepare herself for. She'll keep her head down and play by the rules this first year. Then she'll compete for captaincy her junior year. She'll be on the prom court--a boyfriend will help with that; it has to be an athlete, though, preferably football--though she'll save queen for her senior year.

In short, she's going to have the high school experience befitting a Fabray. She doesn't care what she has to do to get it.

She looks hard at her reflection in the mirror, and searches for any imperfections in her face. She knows she won't find one, but she looks anyway. Her eyes scan her hairline and neck for any trace of foundation line, and find none. They move to her eyes, which are delicately lined in a dark brown shade that brings out the green flakes in the hazel of her iris, and she's thankful for small favors when it comes to the length and curl of her lashes. She turns her head slightly to the side, and the soft line of her nose sets the angles of her cheekbones in sharp relief. And her lips are painted just a shade dark enough to define them against the fairness of her face.

 _Natural_ is what it all comes down to.

Satisfied with the state of her face, she allows her eyes to trace over her own body. She tries to consider herself as a whole, but it's hard not to linger on the hips that still fill out her jeans more than they should. She makes an active decision to focus on the good things and turns to the side, sliding her hand over a flat stomach she never thought she'd have. And then her eyes glide over her arms--ever-so-slightly defined and on full display in her sleeveless shirt; she might as well show the cheerleading coach she's strong enough to lift other human bodies--and she smiles at the promise of power in her own body.

Despite this, she still feels _off_ somehow. She knows she's as close to perfect as she can get, but sometimes, looking in the mirror like this, it just feels...

...uncanny.

She shakes the thought from her head and gets back to the task at hand. She cycles through her various expressions: a confident lift of her chin that elongates her neck, a carefully arched brow and a glare down her nose that's sure to intimidate, and a tiny quirk at the corner of her mouth that softens her _just_ enough that she remains approachable.

It's a careful balancing act of maintaining the illusion of attainability, and it's one she's spent the past year perfecting.

She doesn't have time to run through the more nuanced masks in her repertoire, though, because her mother is calling her from down the stairs, yelling something about how they're going to be late unless they leave _right now_.

She's right, though, and so Quinn takes a deep breath and performs a final quick sweep of her eyes across the mirror before leaving. She takes the stairs two at a time, only to be greeted by her mother's disapproving stare. She pulls her shoulders back almost instinctively as she walks past the older blonde and out of the house.

They're mostly silent as they climb into Judy's car, and it's not until they've left the cul-de-sac that her mother purses her lips and says, "I'll pick you up in about an hour."

"Yes, ma'am," Quinn says, and keeps her eyes trained outside the window at the passing scenery. She doesn't think this meeting is going to last that long, but she learned a long time ago to pick her battles wisely. If nothing else, she can take the time to familiarize herself with the campus.

"And remember to thank her for the opportunity," her mother says as they pull into the school parking lot.

"I will, Mom," Quinn says, and unbuckles her seatbelt. Her hand hovers over the door handle momentarily before she turns back to her mother. "Thanks," she says, her voice soft, and she's referring to so much more than the ride.

She can't tell if it's lost on Judy, though, who just smiles tightly and says, "You're welcome, sweetheart," before placing a quick kiss to Quinn's cheek.

So Quinn just nods once, and gets out of the car, grimacing when she hears her mother call out, "And pull your shoulders back," from somewhere behind her.

*****

Santana has keen eyesight. It's how she manages to get a read on Barbie as soon as she walks into Coach Sylvester's office without ever having to look at her directly.

She's nothing to write home about--just another conventional beauty to round out a squad full of conventional beauties. Santana guesses she's probably a virgin, if the cross around her neck is anything to go by. Then again, the cross is an easy distraction from all sorts of debauchery when worn ironically, but Santana doubts this girl's investment in irony.

According to her preliminary inspection, Quinn Fabray is one of two things; she's either the generic blonde who just wants to belong and will thus fall nicely in line and follow orders, or this obvious attempt at inoffensive perfection is a carefully and deliberately constructed vie for Santana's position as top dog.

Either way, Quinn Fabray is not a _real_ person. She needs to get a closer look to know exactly which kind of monster she's dealing with, though. Unfortunately, Coach is currently performing her own inspection, and Santana knows that her own opinion comes second to Sue Sylvester's. Bonus points certainly go to Barbie for standing at attention without being told, though; Coach loves a show of discipline and self-restraint, and Santana suspects this girl goes home to some fairly strict parents.

It's probably a blessing, considering her obvious goals.

"Well, Santana, what do you think?" she hears Coach Sylvester ask from somewhere off to her right.

Slowly and meticulously, Santana lowers the nail file in her hands onto the small table next to the chair in which she's currently lounging. She makes it a point not to raise her eyes to the new girl until she's standing and moving in front of her.

She finally makes eye contact and waits; waits to see how long it'll take Blondie here to flinch under the pressure. When she doesn't, Santana steps forward, pushing her way into Quinn's personal space, and still she doesn't flinch. Santana almost writes her off as an empty vessel, until she catches the flash of contempt flash behind the hazel eyes in front of her. It's small, and she almost doesn't catch it, but it's there, and it makes Santana pull the corner of her mouth back in an amused smirk.

"Yeah, this one will be fun to break," Santana announces, turning dismissively away from the blonde in front of her and back to the Coach.

"Well, that's just about the best compliment I've ever heard Santana give anyone," Coach Sylvester says, and Santana resumes her post in the chair in the corner of the room. Coach Sylvester is about to go over the basic logistics and expectations of the squad, and Santana's not actually needed for that.

She cringes--inwardly, of course; never outwardly--when Coach mentions the lifestyle clause. It's really the only thing keeping her locked in the position she's in. For whatever reason, Coach Sylvester allows the members of the school board to decide the kind of students they want representing their school--which Santana is certain is at least three kinds of illegal, but there's little she can do about it--which means the squad is entirely populated by straight, celibate, A/B students who would never dream of trying alcohol or illicit drugs. Santana goes against all of these things--except the grades, there's no way of faking those--but puts on a good show of adhering to the guidelines.

Puck's at least useful for that.

And it's not like she can just quit. She needs the squad and its reputation too much. She has three schools that have already expressed interest in her based solely on the fact that she's captain of the best squad in the country as a sophomore.

She's not really sure she can get to college without it.

And that's not even considering the radical act of social suicide it would be.

"So what do you really think?" Coach asks her after Quinn leaves the office.

"I think we've probably got a lot in common," Santana says, still not looking up from her manicure. She saves that gesture to add to the intensity of her next statement. "We'll need to keep an eye on her."

"Ah, so we've got a feisty one on our hands, huh?" Coach Sylvester says with a smile as she shuffles through a few papers on her desk. "Well, that might spell trouble for you, but it'll be good for the squad, and what's good for the squad is good for me. So figure out a way to make it work."

Santana smiles and just about manages to keep the derision out of her face. "I always do."

*****

She recognizes him almost immediately.

Not literally, of course. She doesn't actually know this person. But she recognizes the incongruence between their external appearance and the inherently male way in which they move.

She can't quite put her finger on it, though. Is it the wide strides they take as they walk into the room? Is it the way their hips direct the rest of their body as opposed to their chest? Is it the way they seem to be surprised that their hands can't fit into the tiny pockets typically found in women's pants? Is it the almost imperceptible hunch playing around their shoulders? Or is it the way they lean against the wall, pressing their foot against the brick for stability?

Maybe it's all of these things. Maybe none of them matter at all.

All Rachel really knows is that this person is so much more than what they seem.

None of this matters right now. Right now, the only thing that matters is that she's no longer alone, which turns this exercise from a sound check to a performance. She allows warmth to enter her voice; not enough that her audience would notice a sudden change, but enough to bring life to the emotive quality of "Memory."

Admittedly, she gets carried away with herself, as she usually does, and she has to remind herself to pull back when she practically fills the entire auditorium with her voice--showing off isn't actually what she's here to do--and by the time she comes down on the last few notes, she's almost forgotten that she isn't alone.

Which is why the startled jump she offers in response to the stranger's applause is only half-fake, or so she tells herself.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," the stranger says, holding up their hands in a peaceful gesture and pushing off from the wall.

"That's okay," Rachel says and sits down on the edge of the stage.

"I hope you don't mind the intrusion," they say, taking a few steps forward and pointing to the door behind them. "I heard singing. You're very good."

"Thank you," Rachel says, and while her verbal response comes off moderately cold and practiced, her smile is genuine. "So, are you a new transfer?" Rachel finally asks after an awkward few seconds. "I don't think I recognize you."

It's only after it's left her mouth that she realizes how loaded that last statement is, and she keeps her face in check in the hopes that her company doesn't catch it.

They don't seem to, and if anxiety caused Rachel Berry to lose her breath, she'd be sighing in relief, but that's not something Rachel Berry does and so she just smiles when the newcomer extends their hand and introduces themselves as "Quinn Fabray."

Great. Quinn. Of course. Why wouldn't it be something completely gender neutral? It would be far too convenient for this person to go by something specific like Molly or Larry.

Okay, maybe not Larry.

"I'm Rachel Berry," she says, sliding off the stage and standing in front of Quinn. "It's nice to meet you."

Quinn's handshake is surprisingly firm, which just adds another question mark into the body language column, and Rachel tries one more time to get an accurate read on the person in front of her. Their expression obviously falls on the feminine side, but Rachel knows better than to impose assumptions on people, and thinking of Quinn as "she" feels _wrong_ , somehow.

She decides that "they" will just have to suffice until she's presented with more information.

"You, too," Quinn says, smiling down at her before glancing at the sheet music scattered across the stage behind her. "What's all this?" she asks and then moves around Rachel to glance over a few of the closer songs.

"Oh, I was just looking for an adequate piece to showcase my range for the upcoming glee auditions," Rachel explains as she gathers up the rest of the scores. "I'm going out for lead soprano this year."

"I'm sure you'll do great," Quinn says, handing back the few scores they picked up before leaning casually against the stage.

"Yeah, well, I got it last year, so I feel pretty good about my chances," Rachel says, and she hopes she sounds modest, even though she knows there's no real way to make that statement sound humble.

Quinn doesn't seem to mind, though, because they just laugh and say, "I'm not surprised."

"So what about you?" Rachel asks. "What are you doing here? On campus, I mean. Not that you don't have a right to be here..."

She trails off, because she's already made a mess of the question, and there's no real way to fix it now. Quinn surprises her again, though, and just laughs harder, and the smile they give Rachel affects her in ways she isn't prepared for. It's warm, and inviting, and it makes Rachel feel weak in the knees.

"I actually just had a meeting with Coach Sylvester," Quinn explains, gesturing to the large binder by the door where they had been standing. "You're looking at the newest Cheerio."

A disappointed "Oh" escapes from Rachel's mouth before she has a chance to process the fact that it's there in the first place. "Sorry. I mean, that's great. For you. Congratulations, that's a hard squad to get on," she says, because it's easier than saying, _'Please don't join the Cheerios, because then we'll never be friends.'_

Quinn just takes it stride, though, as they have all of Rachel's nonsensical ramblings. "Yeah, well, clearly cheerleading isn't the only thing this school's good for, huh?" Quinn says, nudging Rachel playfully.

Praise is nothing new for Rachel, but she's not accustomed to getting quite so much recognition from her peers, and she tells herself that's the only reason she blushes. She doesn't want to consider the alternative; that Quinn might be flirting with her. If they are, it's completely unconsciously, and by the time school starts in a week, Quinn is sure to remember her as nothing more than a dodged bullet.

"Um, actually, it kind of is," Rachel says awkwardly, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "The rest of the glee club is nothing to write home about."

Quinn's face falls into a semblance of sympathy. "That's a shame," they say, and then their face brightens again. "More chances for you to shine, though, right?"

It's the reference to _shining_ that has Rachel admitting that yeah, she's probably into Quinn--to whatever degree that's possible after just having met them--and that it's probably more dangerous than she cares to admit.

She makes a show of looking at the time on her phone, because if this conversation goes on for much longer, Rachel's going to hit the point of no return.

"I have to go," she says, slipping her phone back into her pocket. "My dad's supposed to be picking me up soon; I should probably head outside."

"Oh, sure," Quinn says, walking next to her toward the door and scooping up the Cheerio binder on the way. "I'm actually supposed to meet my mom, too."

Quinn opens the door for her--and of course they do--and waits patiently for her to cross the threshold into the hallway.

"So what year are you?" Quinn asks a few steps down the tiled hall.

"Sophomore."

"Oh, wow. Me, too," Quinn says. "Maybe we'll have some classes together."

"Yeah, maybe," Rachel answers noncommittally. It's a nice sentiment now, but she knows it won't mean anything in a week after the rest of the Cheerios get to Quinn and explain how the McKinley social hierarchy works. And Rachel doesn't really want to exchange these meaningless sentiments and get her hopes up at the idea of having a friend that doesn't just put up with her, but seems to actually like her, if none of it's real.

And she really doesn't want to think about the smile that Quinn is giving her right now. Or the fact that Quinn is so obviously oblivious to it.

Quinn makes an uncomfortable sound in the back of their throat as they push through the double doors at the main entrance, and Rachel follows their gaze to the silver car idling in the parking lot. There's an older blonde woman behind the wheel and from where Rachel's standing, she looks impatient.

"Are you going to be okay by yourself?" Quinn asks, and Rachel has to bite her tongue to keep from falling that little bit farther. She tells herself that Quinn is just being nice, and then reminds herself that it's all going to end when Quinn figures out how things work around here.

She nods, and then Quinn starts across the parking lot with an, "It was nice to meet you," tossed over their shoulder.

Rachel watches as they approach the car and bend down to talk to who Rachel guesses is their mother through the lowered window. They're too far away for her to hear their conversation, but the woman behind the wheel looks even more exasperated, and Quinn just turns around to look back at Rachel.

Which of course is when Rachel realizes that she's been staring herself, and so she quickly looks away and down the road, where she thankfully sees her dad's car pulling into the parking lot. She turns back to Quinn, finding them still looking worriedly at her and she motions at the approaching vehicle and waves goodbye.

She makes it a point not to look at Quinn until she's safely inside the car and buckled in, but Quinn and the silver car have disappeared by the time she looks up.

*****

"So who was that girl?"

"Her name is Rachel," Quinn says absently from the passenger seat.

"Oh? Is she another cheerleader?" Judy asks, and her voice carries just enough of a hint of probing that it sets Quinn on the defensive.

She's in trouble--she's always in trouble--but she just can't figure out why.

Which is nothing new, really.             

"No, she's a singer."

"A musician?" Judy asks, and her nose scrunches uncomfortably.

"Yeah, Mom, you know that thing you sent me to years of piano lessons to train me to be?"

"Don't get smart, Quinn, it's not becoming," her mother warns. "Besides, I didn't send you to those lessons to train you to become a musician. I sent you to those lessons to teach you discipline and commitment."

"Right," Quinn says, fixing her gaze outside the window again.

"I did, however, send you to a personal trainer for a year so that you could get on one of the best cheerleading squads in the country," Judy continues, her voice only a little tight, despite her words. "Which you wanted so that you could be popular. So maybe you should hang out with them, instead of some musician?"

"Yes, ma'am," Quinn says and adds, 'befriend Santana' to her mental to-do list.

"Besides," Judy continues as though Quinn hadn't spoken. She might as well not, at this point. "You'll have boys all over you the day you walk in."

"You think so?" Quinn asks, and she thinks she's just about mustered enough enthusiasm at the prospect. She knows, logically, that she'll be working at securing a boyfriend from the word go, but it feels more like an obligation to fulfill than something to really look forward to.

"Of course," Judy responds and glances at her daughter. "Trust me, between boys, the squad, and studying, you won't have any time to think about anyone else."

Ah. For a second, Quinn wasn't sure if her mother's abrupt conversational change was because she was really letting it go, or if it was because she thought it was big enough to get her father involved.

It's getting harder, these days, to know what the rules are.

But her mother hasn't changed topics at all. Not really. She's just trying to distract Quinn from... well, she's not sure what. But if her mother's going to this much trouble, she's probably trying to _keep_ Russell out of it. Which means Quinn's walking a fine line, and she should probably just play along.

"Yeah, you're right," she says, and it's almost as though her voice takes on teenage enthusiasm all on its own. "Santana, the captain? She says the football team's pretty hot."

Lies. It's all lies. And she should probably feel worse about how easily they tumble out of her mouth.

"Captain, huh?" Judy asks, smiling, and Quinn knows she's generally out of the woods. "Not for long though, right?"

"She'll keep it this year," Quinn says, crossing her arms over her chest.

Judy chuckles softly, and it's one of those rare moments when Quinn's mom actually seems to enjoy being in her presence. Quinn just wishes that it didn't exhaust her like this.

"Well, just remember," Judy says, pulling into the driveway, and Quinn has to stop herself from bolting out of the car. "There _may_ be boys, but _you_ have the power," she says as she shuts off the engine. "No man can do anything to you unless you let them."

"I know, Mom." It's the same line she's heard from her mother throughout childhood, and she knows her sister got a lot of it when she was getting ready to go to college.

She _thinks_ it's meant to be empowering.

But for now, she's met her quota of one-on-one mother-daughter time, and she just wants to be alone for a while. She's tired now--she feels as though she's been acting all day and then realizes that she has--and all she wants is to escape to the isolation of her room.

So despite her mother's good mood, she offers her mom a final smile and pushes her way out of the car and into the house. She doesn't bother to wait for Judy as she climbs the stairs, but a few minutes later, the tinkling of glass on glass downstairs tells her she'll be left alone at least until dinner.


	2. Teen Idle

"Hey, Finn! My man," Puck says, sidling up next to his best friend at his locker. "I just saw Kurt outside; no one's canned him yet," he says, jutting a thumb back over his shoulder.

"Yeah, hey, man," Finn says, and slaps Puck's hand lazily. He's obviously distracted, and Puck's almost annoyed. They're best friends--practically brothers--Finn could at least manage to pretend to be happy to see him.

What has him so distracted anyway? Puck follows his gaze across the hall, landing on a blonde girl he's never seen before.

Now, Noah Puckerman knows beautiful women. He's seen more than his share, and has even bedded a few. Hell, his girlfriend is by and large considered the hottest girl in school--though, that's becoming increasingly less exciting as time drags on--but the girl that has Finn's eye puts them all to shame. She's something else entirely.

He's not a man of many words. He's no Shakespeare. He doesn't know how to wax poetic about the things that looking at this girl does to him.

He only really knows that she's _perfect_.

"Who's that?" he asks Finn, completely forgetting about the boy in the parking lot he had planned on tormenting. This is much more interesting, anyway.

"I don't know, man," Finn says, his eyes never leaving the girl across the hall. "New transfer? Freshman?"

Finn's never been accused of being subtle. Then again, neither has Puck.

"Well, I think it's time I introduce myself," Puck says, arching an eyebrow and taking a step across the hall.

Finn's hand on his shoulder stops him, though, and when he turns around, Finn looks disappointed and just a little bit hurt. "What about Santana?"

This isn't about Santana, and they both know it--really, his relationship with Santana is far from the whirlwind of drama and heat its made out to be; it's more like a natural progression of their friendship that everyone took for granted as inevitable. No, this is about his friendship with Finn and the fact that every girl Finn's into always chooses Puck.

It's not even that Puck doesn't try to help him; he's attempted to wing-man him countless times, but Finn just hasn't figured out how to make his oafishness work for him. It is, after all, a very particular kind of charm.

So it's not Santana that has Puck returning to Finn's side and saying, "Yeah, you're right," and he'd have to be blind not to notice how Finn's shoulders relax.

"I think I'm going to ask her out," Finn says, and Puck sees it coming a mile away.

"Yeah? Go for it," he says. The least he can do is let Finn have first shot at her. He's pretty sure he'll walk away the victor in the end.

"Yeah? You think I have a shot?"

Puck laughs, because _this_ is exactly why he doesn't have a girlfriend. "Man, you're the quarterback," he says, punching Finn lightly in the ribs. "That's like social currency, dude."

"Yeah," Finn says, nodding slowly. "Right," he adds, with more force, and Puck recognizes Finn's attempts at psyching himself up.

"Whoa, whoa, man, you're not going to do it right now, are you?"

"Why not? You were?"

"Well, yeah," Puck admits, and shuffles on his feet before saying, "but that's different. I'm different. You want to ask around first; at least find out her name. You know, show her you're invested."

"Right," Finn says, nodding again but more calmly this time, and he just manages to catch the new girl walk away from her locker when he turns back across the hall.

"See? Missed opportunity, anyway," Puck says, clapping his hand on his friend's shoulder and directing him down the hallway in the opposite direction. "Now let's see if we can start by finding out her name."

 *****

She remembers the overwhelming tumult of crowds of teenagers attempting to push against each other in the confusion of new classes and locker combinations from her old high school--remembers the way her body would be bounced around hallways by hurried upperclassmen pushing past her and sending her face first into the nearest locker. She knows, logically, that McKinley is different, and reminds herself that she is, in fact, Quinn Fabray and she will leave her mark on this school.

It _is_ different. People see her. People have always seen her. But where they once responded with contempt, it's missing, now. As she glances around the hallway, she becomes increasingly aware of curious and appreciative eyes on her, and it makes it easier for her to fall into character. She tells herself that the smirk playing about her lips and the way her chin lifts is second nature, but she's lying to herself and she knows it. But the crowd parts for her as she walks down the hall, and she makes sure to not-quite make eye contact with anyone as she moves through them.

She knows she's too good for them. They know she's too good for them.

Better to establish it early, really.

She finds her locker easily enough--she made it a point to find it when she was at the school a week earlier for her Cheerio interview--and maintains the slightly haughty tilt to her head as she balances her bag on her knee to organize her school space for the first time. She attaches a mirror carefully to the inside of the door, and it's only after she's adjusted its height just so that she bothers to get her school materials in order.

She noticed the boy in the letterman jacket across the hall staring at her. He had been there when she walked up. But by the time she pulls her third spare binder out of her bag and slides it into her locker, a glance in the mirror tells her he's been joined by another, and she'd have to be blind not to notice the way both of their eyes rake over her body.

Her first instinct is to run--it's unsettling, somehow--and she clamps down on the urge to shut her locker and flee. But then she reminds herself that this is exactly what all of her hard work was for. She's been here for fifteen minutes, and it already looks like two boys might fight over her.

It's _supposed_ to be every girl's dream, right?

She lingers briefly when it looks like one of them might approach her, but after a few moments pass and they've only managed to talk to each other, she shuts her locker and heads toward her first class.

She's halfway down a second hallway when she hears her name called from somewhere ahead of her. She has to crane her neck around some of the larger crowds of students, but she does, eventually, catch sight of an argyle sweater reminiscent of the one a certain musician was wearing a week ago.

"Hey, Quinn!" Rachel calls from halfway down the hall when she notices she's caught Quinn's eye.

And just like that, Quinn feels her smile shift from its practiced politeness into one much more genuine, because the attention from those boys was flattering, but she thinks Rachel might be a friend she doesn't have to perform for.

Until, that is, she watches in horror as some third Neanderthal in a letterman jacket crosses in front of Rachel and her face contorts into a grimace of surprised anguish as she's drenched in what Quinn assumes to be cherry slushy.

Her hand is stuck awkwardly in mid-air as she looks around, attempting to gauge if anyone's figured out she's waving at Rachel. As barbaric as the act she just witnessed was, it also serves as a pretty clear indicator of where Rachel stands in this school.

She's not proud of it--part of her, whatever's left of Lucy that she couldn't quite get rid of empathizes with Rachel more than she cares to admit--but the fact that Rachel's not looking at her anymore because she's wiping the syrup from her eyes makes it easier for Quinn to shut that part of herself down, bring her hand back to her side, and turn on her heel to find an alternate route to class.

She's pretty sure Rachel will get the message.

*****

Lunch time is a test. Everybody knows it. Santana had to pass the test last year, and this year it's Quinn. Santana decides she likes it much better on the judging end of things. Plus, she knows this will be harder for Quinn than it was for her. Last year, they were all freshmen, and therefore they were all new. The system wasn't set, yet. As a new transfer, Quinn is faced with the daunting task of establishing herself in a pre-established social order.

Santana's so excited to see how Barbie's going to deal with the pressure that she almost doesn't notice Brittany's hand on her thigh. _Almost_.

"I'm so excited to meet the new girl," Brittany says, and while Santana's less enthused, she's never really been able to prevent catching the other girl's mood, which is how she finds herself beaming right back at her.

"I know, B," she says, squeezing the hand in her lap underneath the table. "New people are exciting."

"I hope she likes me."

"It's impossible not to," Santana says and lifts both of her hands back to the top of the table, and her eyes flick back over to the cafeteria doors.

The entrance is important, and she knows it. She's also willing to bet Quinn knows it. She's not at all surprised when Quinn walks in purposefully, head held high. She hesitates just long enough to catch sight of Santana before she heads toward their table. The confidence sets the foundation, but what really sells it is that Quinn has this little half-smile than any guy would love to have directed at them, but Quinn only seems to _almost_ make eye contact with anyone.

No. There's absolutely nothing about what she's seen from Quinn Fabray that is in any way genuine. That kind of intimidating allure only comes with practice; if anyone knows that, it's Santana.

It's still unclear if Quinn is going to be an obstacle or an asset.

"Hi, Santana," Quinn says when she sits down across from Brittany like she owns the place--and she will if Santana doesn't do something.

Unfortunately, Brittany opens her mouth before Santana gets a chance to, and says, "Hi! Are you Quinn?" which is exactly the last thing Brittany should be saying in this moment. The last thing any of them need is for Quinn to think there's already no need to introduce herself, and the way Santana responds to this situation will tell the rest of the school exactly who's in charge.

"I am," Quinn says with a surprised smile, and before any more pleasantries can be exchanged, Santana reminds them both of her authority.

She arches an elegant eyebrow and juts her chin in Quinn's direction. "You got an invite, or something?"

Quinn's smile doesn't falter, though, and she locks her gaze with Santana. "Well, not officially," she says, reaching into her bag and producing the Cheerios binder Coach Sylvester gave her last week. "But I thought we could go over a few of the more complicated routines before today's practice."

Santana's _almost_ caught off guard. She was expecting some kind of passive-aggressive insult--it's how these things usually went--but this is almost an open display of submissiveness.

Santana isn't buying it; Quinn's playing a long game.

"Well, hon, just follow my orders. If you're worth your salt, you'll pick it up," she says with a smile that drips with false sincerity. If she's honest with herself, there's a part of her that's having fun right now. No one's ever challenged her in such an underhandedly brilliant way, and keeping Quinn in her place is undoubtedly going to prove a completely new kind of game.

She's actually kind of excited about it.

"Oh, I don't doubt your leadership abilities," Quinn says, her smile growing insistently wider. "I just think that it would be easier--for me--if I know what to expect going in. My being up to speed can only help the squad, after all."

Santana almost laughs, but this isn't the time for that. She's got a retort about competence on the tip of her tongue, but she never gets to say it.

Because Brittany jumps in before she gets the opportunity with a cheerful, "That's a great idea, don't you think, San?"

And just like that, this round is over. Quinn didn't exactly win, but neither did Santana, and they both know it. With a resigned sigh, Santana rolls her eyes and says, "Yeah, alright. Was there something in particular that you wanted to look at?"

Sure enough, Quinn's prepared with specific questions about some of the admittedly harder routines, and as she clarifies the staggered timing that Coach Sylvester wants and where Quinn fits into it, Santana realizes she's never really had any power at all. When it comes down to it, Brittany calls all the shots.

She just needs to keep Quinn from figuring that out.

*****

This is the part she likes. Despite the ringing in her ears brought on by Santana's and Coach Sylvester's incessant yelling, Quinn genuinely enjoys the chance to use and push her body this way. It had taken her exactly three sessions with Leon for her to figure out just how much she enjoyed physical activity, once she discovered how much easier it was to move in a lighter body. The trainer took advantage of that fact and pushed her in ways her mother never outlined, but it paid off, because now she's able to keep up with Santana without getting winded.

Saying she hasn't broken a sweat would be lying, though, because autumn hasn't settled in, yet, and the afternoon sun is starting to feel uncomfortable on her skin. She's aware of a bead of sweat making its way down her temple, and there's a small part of her that revels in the way her body responds.

It's just a small part, though, because there's another, much larger part that still feels she hasn't gotten to where she's supposed to. She's not sure, exactly, what her physical goals are; she just knows she hasn't met them. And if she's honest with herself, that's probably why she's continued to push herself beyond the necessary requirements of maintenance.

It's what has her bouncing back into position as Coach Sylvester calls for, "one more time," for the fourth time while the rest of the squad--minus Santana--groans and trudges back to their opening positions.

"Come on, ladies!" Santana calls in an empathetic voice Quinn hasn't heard, yet, and she guesses Santana's reading the exhaustion in the rest of the squad and is reacting accordingly. "The quicker we hustle, the sooner we'll be done, let's go!"

It seems to work, though, because the rest of the squad seems to pull out that last bit of energy they have for this last run-through, and Quinn pays attention. She plans on being captain next year, but the interpersonal part of that job title is something she hasn't considered, yet. She's going to be expected to read the entire squad and bring the best out of them when they don't want to give it, and if what Santana just did is any indication, being a hard-ass is not where leadership ends.

The mere thought of being that attuned to that many women exhausts her.

"That's right, you could all learn a thing or two from Q over there," Coach Sylvester's voice blares over the megaphone as Quinn stretches her left quad and waits for the rest of the squad to fall into formation.

At least she's got "lead by example" down.

It's not their best run-through of the day, but Coach Sylvester seems to know, when they're finished, that she can't push them anymore, and so she demands a round of twenty push-ups from each of them before releasing them for the day.

Even this is something she enjoys, despite how tired her body already is. It'll just make this that much easier in a week, and it's with that thought that she welcomes the soreness she's guaranteed to feel tomorrow morning.

The grass on the practice field is coarse, and her palms itch as she lowers her body to the ground again and again. She focuses on her breathing and tries to block out the sounds of adolescent boy bodies colliding with one another across the field. It's counter-intuitive, really, how successful the Cheerios are in relation to the size of the town. It would be easy to assume the Cheerios have their own dedicated practice space, yet, here she is, sharing the field with a football team that could be considered mediocre at best.

Her attention is drawn to the boys across the field as she finishes her set. They seem to be releasing at the same time, since they've all started staggering their way off the field, and she catches sight of the two boys she caught staring at her earlier that morning. The tall one's awkward, and his face, while pleasant enough, she supposes, is largely blank and unassuming. His friend, though, with the mohawk--and she didn't even know people still wore those--has clearly moved through the awkward oaf stage early.

It happens subconsciously, the way her eyes travel over his body, taking in the angular lines of his biceps and the veins lining his forearms. It's the first time all day that she's forgotten herself and allowed instinct to take over, and it scares her.

But not nearly as much as the awareness that she finds nothing sexy about the scene at all.

Okay, fine, it's not like she necessarily finds _anything_ sexy, but there's something--deep in the back of her mind--that stirs as she watches the two boys. She's felt it before--rarely--but she doesn't have a name for it.

Not that she has the time to try to articulate it, now--not when Santana's suddenly next to her and hissing, "Aiming a little high there, aren't we?" in her ear.

It's enough to shake her from her lapse in judgment, though, and with a quick shake of her head, the mask falls back into place. Instead of dignifying Santana's hostility with a verbal response, though, she just arches a challenging eyebrow.

Santana smirks in response, and Quinn thinks she's starting to get a feel for how best to deal with her. Santana seems to enjoy a challenge, but only to a certain extent. That's fine; Quinn can play this game for the next year.

"Alright, so I'm gonna give you a pass," Santana says, pushing past her with her shoulder, "because you're new and maybe nobody's told you. But Puck?" she continues, pointing toward the boy Quinn has just been caught staring at. "He's mine."

Quinn recognizes the stake at territory for what it is, and even though she wants nothing whatsoever to do with Puck in a romantic sense, she also can't help poking at Santana's exposed weakness. "Why Santana," she says, widening her eyes and placing her hand on her chest dramatically. "I didn't know you considered me a threat."

Santana just rolls her eyes, though, and tosses a, "You wish," over her shoulder before heading off to the locker room.

So maybe Puck _isn't_ the point of weakness that Santana's outburst suggests.

*****

Finn waits.

He's not sure how he knows to expect it--it's not like he's got a father that could teach him to wait on women; though maybe growing up with _just_ a mom taught him everything he needs to know--but he's already showered and dressed long before the Cheerios start filtering out of their own locker room.

Puck took off early, leaving him with a playful taunt about being prematurely whipped, and as the minutes tick by, Finn wonders if he's got a point. Puck's obviously doing something right, if he's the one with the girlfriend instead of Finn, and Santana's all over him at every party and he practically ignores her. Maybe displaying this much interest this quickly _is_ a problem.

Then again, how is he expected to progress _at all_ unless he does... something?

If he's counted correctly--and, honestly, he probably hasn't--the rest of the squad's already gone. He supposes it's possible that she was one of the first ones to leave and he somehow managed to miss her. It seems unlikely, but the truth is, he doesn't know this girl. None of them do. Maybe she's not like the rest of them.

He decides to give it another five minutes before giving up and going home, but about two minutes later, the door to the girl's locker room swings open, and he's caught staring at the girl he's been waiting for.

He tries to speak--can even feel his jaw working--but nothing comes out, really. She offers him a confused smile and moves to walk past him, and he panics.

"You're Quinn, right?" he asks, because it's exactly the first thing that comes to mind. It's convenient enough, though, because introductions are certainly the first order of business, here.

"Um, yeah," she confirms, and her expression is hard to read. The smile is pleasant, but the crease between her eyebrows is worrisome. He's just not sure if she's flattered that he knows, or if he's stepped over some kind of boundary by knowing her name.

But that's stupid, because she's new, and everybody always knows the new kid's name. That's the way new kids work. Especially new girls.

Besides, Puck told him to ask around first, and Puck's never wrong about girls.

So he shakes it off, deciding it's all in his head and that he should just press forward. "I'm Finn Hudson," he says, sticking a hand in her direction and giving her his very best lopsided grin. Really, he's just thankful to be speaking in complete sentences, even if they _are_ mostly made up of his own name.

She shakes his hand in greeting and says, "It's nice to meet you," though her eyes are trained on their joined hands, and he thinks that's kind of weird.

It doesn't last long, though, because she's turned away from him and started walking toward the parking lot. He's got long legs, though, and so it really doesn't take much to catch up with her.

Except now he doesn't know what to do. They've introduced themselves, and that was pleasant enough, but he doesn't know what the next step is. Is he supposed to jump into asking her out? Is he supposed to lead up to it? How is he even supposed to do that?

No one told him the formula.

And that's how he finds himself asking, "So how do you like McKinley so far?" which is probably not the _worst_ thing that could have come from his mouth.

It earns him a small smile, at least, but she takes her time responding. They're halfway across the parking lot before she turns toward him and says, "It's... predictable enough."

He doesn't know what to do with that answer, but he figures his best bet is some generic anti-authority sentiment about automaton creating high schools across the country which at least produces a laugh.

By now he's figured out that she's headed toward a silver car at the far end of the parking lot, and he can just make out an older blonde woman behind the wheel watching them, so he's not particularly surprised when she stops him as they approach. "Look, I have to go," she says, pointing toward the car in question. "It was nice meeting you, though."

"Hey," he says, grabbing her wrist and halting her progress. He releases her as soon as her surprised glance falls on her wrist and awkwardly rubs at the back of his head in embarrassment. "I was wondering if you might want to go out sometime?" he asks, and he cringes at his own apparent lack of confidence.

For a second, he thinks she's going to turn him down. Worse than that, it almost looks like she's going to yell at him. But then she glances back to the car where her mother--he's assuming--waits and flashes him a smile that has him forgetting his own name.

"Sure, that sounds fun," she says, and it takes everything in him not to pump his fist in the air in triumph. Instead, he just shuffles nervously as she produces a pen from her purse and jots down her phone number. "Call me and we'll figure something out," she says as she hands him the slip of paper, and he purposefully brushes his fingers against hers in the exchange.

"Yeah, sure thing," he says, taking a step back and watching her make her way to the car.

It's only when she's safely driven away that Finn allows himself to outwardly celebrate by hissing out a "yes" and pumping his fist at his side. He's not sure how he's going to manage to fill an entire night with Quinn--he could barely manage a three minute conversation--but the phone number in his pocket is a trophy, and so he knows he has to at least try.

Puck's going to be so jealous.

*****

"So how was your first day?" Russell finally asks, halfway through dinner after he's finished venting about the ineptitude of his employees. Apparently, Ohioans are of a lower quality than Pennsylvanians, if his assessment is anything to go by.

"It was good," Quinn says noncommittally, picking at the spinach on her plate.

"Oh come on, now," her mom says after taking a sip of wine. "Don't be so modest; tell him" she encourages, and Quinn wishes she could be as excited as her own mother.

"It's nothing, really," she says, and allows herself a bite of the steak she's left mostly untouched on her plate.

"Sure it is!" her mother says before turning to Russell. "Quinn got asked out today," she says and it almost feels like Judy's proud of _herself_ , instead of Quinn. "By a football player."

"Oh?" her father asks, obviously intrigued, and Quinn doesn't really know what to make of her father's interest in her dating life. "What position?"

"Quarterback, I think," she says, and she's pretty sure he'll be impressed by that.

She's right. His eyebrows raise in contemplation as he chews the food in his mouth. "That's terrific," he says after he's swallowed.

"Yeah, I guess."

"I can see it now," her mom says with stars in her eyes. "We're going to have three prom queens in the family," she gushes, clearly living out some maternal vicarious thrill through her daughter.

Quinn doesn't really know what to do with any of it, though. This is what she wanted, when she got rid of Lucy. She wanted to fit in and be popular and please her parents, but now that she's doing those things, well...

Now she has to keep it up.

"Yes, well, just don't get too serious too quickly. You know those boys only want one thing," her father reminds her, and she's even more confused about his role in her romantic life. He's somehow managing to simultaneously encourage her relationship with a boy he doesn't know based solely on the fact that he plays football while warning her against him in any meaningful way. She _thinks_ he's telling her to treat him as a fashion accessory, and that's fine with her--it's what she intends to do, anyway--but her father's input makes her feel uneasy in a way she can't describe.

"I don't think we have to worry about that," her mother says, looking over at Quinn proudly. "Quinn's a smart girl, and she knows how quickly rumors spread and how influential one's reputation can be, don't you, Honey?"

"Yeah, of course," she answers, and takes another bite of spinach. She chews for a few moments and recalls one of the tricks Frannie used to use on their dad when she would still come around, and after swallowing, turns to her father and says, "You taught me right from wrong. I'll be fine."

She doesn't even know what she's referring to anymore, but these positive platitudes about his parenting skills go a long way with Russell, and she's rewarded with one of the warmer smiles he's ever directed at her.

She sets her silverware down and announces that she's finished eating before her mother has a chance to start in on the conversation again, and throws an overly sweet, "Thank you, Daddy," over her shoulder when he dismisses her with an "I'm proud of you."

She rinses her plate under warm water before sliding it into place in the dishwasher and then makes her way up to her room. She feels anxious, and she doesn't know why, so she drops to the floor and does a set of crunches, and when the anxiety remains, she does another. Finally, she decides to just study, even though she doesn't actually have any homework. It keeps her from thinking about why her value seems to be dependent on which boy likes her in the eyes of her parents, anyway.


	3. Polishing My Social Skills

By the time Wednesday rolls around, Rachel's been slushied three times.

Not that she's surprised--she learned last year to always bring a change of clothes to school--but it's exactly why she hates the first week of school.  Everybody's so excited about new clothes and friends and lockers, and it's not until the routine and monotony sets in that the slushies diminish from once a day to every few weeks.

"Yeah, well, at least you don't get tossed in dumpsters," Kurt says, biting into his sandwich when she expresses her discontent.

Rachel and Kurt, along with Mercedes, decided to skip the cafeteria today, opting instead for the relative quiet the auditorium provides.  The stage lights are warm, but it's still better than trying to eat in the same room with their tormentors.

"Whatever," Mercedes says, dismissing Kurt's statement with a wave of her hand.  "At least when you get tossed into dumpsters, they let you take your jacket off.  I've had two blouses completely ruined."

"That's your own fault," Kurt says, in that haughty tone that drives Rachel crazy.  "It's not like you didn't know what to expect."

"There will be no victim blaming here, thank you very much," Rachel says, managing to keep the annoyance from her voice.  It's not like she has many friends; she can't afford to alienate Kurt.

He rolls his eyes and says something about Rachel's social justice crusades--because social justice is the problem, here?--but he doesn't try to defend himself, and so that's the most acquiescence she's going to get from him.

Mercedes opens her mouth to say something, but they're all caught off guard when one of the heavy metal doors at the back of the house area opens and Quinn strolls purposefully into the auditorium.

But only for a few steps, because that's approximately how long it takes for her--Rachel can't quite reconcile using female pronouns in relation to Quinn, but it's what everyone else has been using and Quinn hasn't corrected them, and Rachel is nothing if not respectful--to realize she's not alone.

It's incongruent--the way Quinn's composure sort of falters and she mumbles an apology--to the picture of self-confidence that's been strutting around the school for the past three days.  It's incongruent, but somehow, Rachel also finds it completely unsurprising.

What _is_ surprising, however, is how quickly she's on her feet and off the stage.  "Quinn," she calls when she's halfway to where Quinn is standing, fully expecting a repeat of when she tried this in the hallway on Monday, but Quinn finally manages to shock her by hanging around.

Quinn looks just as surprised.  And maybe a little scared.

"Sorry," she says, looking past Rachel at the other two people in the room, still on the stage.  "I was just looking for someplace to be alone," she clarifies, even though Rachel never asked for an explanation.

"You can stay if you want," Rachel says, and it takes every ounce of control she has to keep the hopefulness out of her voice.  She takes a tentative step toward Quinn, and it's mirrored by her own step back, and so she just stands awkwardly in front of her, hoping to catch her attention.

"No, thank you," Quinn says, finally meeting Rachel's eyes.

Rachel _gets it_.  She _understands_ why Quinn is behaving this way.  It's the same reason she tried to talk herself out of being hopeful when they met.  They're from two different worlds, and they just weren't meant to cross.  So she's trying--so hard--not to take Quinn's sudden elusiveness personally.  Because she _knows_ that it has nothing to do with her; and that this is all some part of Quinn's personal complex.

What she doesn't understand is why Quinn is still standing in front of her, as though she's waiting for some sort of dismissal.

Knowing why Quinn is distancing herself from her, however, doesn't altogether keep the anger or the disappointment at bay.  It's one thing to _understand_ ; it's another thing entirely to keep herself from compounding years of taunts and isolation from other people into this singular situation and project it onto Quinn, and it's these emotions that have her laughing bitterly and tearing her eyes away from Quinn's.

"Okay, Quinn," is all she can muster, accompanied with an instinctual eye-roll and half-shrug, because this whole situation is just... so stupid.

She supposes that's the dismissal Quinn was waiting for, because she sets her jaw and kind of nods in Rachel's direction before leaving the way she entered.

For a second, Rachel thinks she looks tired.

"What was _that_ about?" Mercedes asks when she rejoins her friends on the otherwise empty stage.

"Nothing," Rachel says, trying to put enough finality into her voice to shut down the conversation.

Except she should have known that would just make Kurt push the issue, because that's exactly who Kurt is.

"That looked like a whole lot of something for a practical stranger," he says and fixes her with his know-it-all stare, as though he is the purveyor of all things interpersonal.

She shrugs nonchalantly and shakes her head.  "We met last week," she explains, hoping vague information will be enough to appease him.  "Thought we might have been friends for a second."

"Yeah, I know that we're not about victim blaming here, but you _really_ should have known that was never going to happen," Mercedes says.

She can feel Kurt's eyes on her, and she's almost afraid that he'll push further into _why_ , exactly, she was so hopeful about this particular friendship, which is basically the very last thing she wants to talk about right now.  The last thing she needs is to be goaded into admitting that she's inexplicably forming a crush on a person who doesn't want anything to do with her, which doesn't even touch on the field day Kurt would have with the sexuality game it presents.  She's mostly trying not to think about it, and that's so much easier to do when it's buried inside her own head, instead of out in the world.

"Yeah, you're right," she says, conceding to Mercedes' point.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can tell that Kurt wants to say something--ask more questions, maybe--but her continued refusal to dignify his studious observation of her keeps him quiet.

For now, anyway.

*****

Santana's walking a very fine line.

Brittany's hard to control--not that she exactly wants to, but the less suspicious everyone else is about their relationship, the better--and so it's a careful balancing act between not-quite-enough affection with Brittany and just-enough affection with Puck.  It's almost as though the intensity of what she and Brittany can get away with is directly proportional to how public she is about her relationship with Puck.  There are things that they can get away with: holding hands, cuddling, the occasional kiss.  They're what can realistically be expected from a particularly affectionate female friendship, and as long as Puck remains her primary public love interest, that's all her behavior with Brittany ever gets chalked up to.  There's never any reason to take them seriously, because every time things get a little out of hand with Brittany, they get even more out of hand with Puck, and as long as she's showing up to parties and dances on his arm and putting on a show, she basically generates little more than mild curiosity.

In short, Puck allows her a certain amount of freedom in her relationship with Brittany, which is good, because Brittany just doesn't understand the concept of subtlety.  It's one of the things Santana loves about her, actually, no matter how dangerous it is, because Brittany loves openly and boldly, and it's exactly what Santana needs in her life.  So as long as they're not actually making out in front of anybody, their physical affection largely gets overlooked.

Of course, she can only take her relationship with Puck so far, too, but that's much more easily handled.  Given both of their reputations, it's pretty clear to the student body that they're sexually active, but that's not something that can be proved in any sort of legal way, and so as long as they cool it in front of Coach Sylvester, it's not really a problem.

Really, though, it feels like she's got exactly three square feet of space in which to move, and it's all because of that damn contract she signed a year ago.

No, minor public displays of affection with Brittany are nothing new, but showering together certainly is.  She's rinsing the conditioner out of her hair when Brittany slips in behind her, and she hisses out a tense, "What are you doing?"

"All the other showers are taken," Brittany says simply with a shrug and nudges Santana to the side so that she can wet her hair.

_Shit_.  Santana peers over the curtain to see if anyone's paying any kind of real attention, but only sees a few members of the squad milling about in various states of undress, mostly gossiping among themselves.  Okay.  She can make this work.  This is salvageable.

She shuts down her panic and pokes Brittany playfully in the ribs.  The two have gotten into tickle fights before, and it's never been a problem.  This is just with water... and without clothes.

Fuck, it's so hard not to touch Brittany the way she wants to.

Brittany giggles and gently pokes back, and Santana uses it as an opportunity to pull the taller girl out from under the spray so that she can finish rinsing her hair.  If she can keep her hands to herself and finish up quickly, this whole situation will probably go completely unnoticed.

Sure enough, two minutes and a chaste peck on the lips later has her wrapping a towel around her body and leaving Brittany to the rest of her shower.  It's not until she's reached her locker that she realizes she's been caught coming out of the same shower that Brittany's still in by Quinn.

If it were any one of the other girls, this would be no problem.  They're used to Santana's and Brittany's behavior, and largely think nothing of it--or if they do, they don't let on, possibly out of a sense of loyalty and maybe a little fear--but Quinn is the wild card, and Santana's not sure how to deal with her.

If she goes on the defensive too soon, it's just going to draw more attention to Brittany.  But if Quinn recognizes what just happened for what it really was, then Santana _has_ to do damage control.

She opts to set Quinn on the defensive--it's the most effective strategy, anyway--and calls out a harsh, "Like what you see?" in the blonde's direction.

Quinn seems flustered and looks away from Santana, pulling a pair of jeans out of her locker and stepping into them.  Santana considers pushing the issue for a second, but Quinn's gaze is fixed on the inside of her locker and her lips are pressed into a thin line, and Santana takes it for the signal that she's minding her own business that it is.

Which, frankly, is almost worse; it means that Quinn knows she saw something that she shouldn't, and while she seems content to keep quiet about it now, there's no guarantee she'll stay that way.  But Santana also can't press any further without drawing more attention to herself, and so she resigns herself to the fact that she's going to have to ride this one out.

Brittany takes quick showers, and so she's not surprised when her shower cuts off as Santana's pulling on her own jeans.  She's also not surprised when Brittany walks out naked as the day she was born, using her towel to dry out her hair.  Brittany's never known the meaning of the word "shame," and it's just another one of the amazing things about her that Santana loves.

Quinn, however, _does_ appear to be surprised by Brittany's immodesty, if the fact that she's seemingly forgotten that she was in the middle of applying eyeliner when Brittany came out of the shower.  Santana watches her eyes move over Brittany's body--which is nothing new, of course, because it's Brittany--but Santana has a hard time pinning down the look in Quinn's eye.  It's almost appreciative, but not quite, and so she settles on comparative, which feels fairly in character with what she knows about Quinn.

Still, it's completely inappropriate, and while she can shrug off Quinn looking at her, she has no right to Brittany's person, and so she slinks next to the lockers until she next to her--completely unnoticed, by the way--and whispers a teasingly seductive, "I didn't know we had Ellen in our midst."  It doesn't matter if Quinn is actually lusting after Brittany.  Being caught staring at two different girls is enough evidence to arouse anyone's suspicion.

Quinn jumps, which is exactly what Santana wants--to catch her off guard.  She is, however, closer to Santana's equal than she'd care to admit, and so she recovers quickly and fixes Santana with a look of amused smugness that has Santana more worried than she dares to admit.

"You sure are quick to point fingers," she says, tilting her head in Brittany's direction, "considering how touchy you are with Portia, over there."

Santana just smiles, though, because Quinn's playing right into the game.

"Up on our lesbian culture, are we?"

"You'd know, I guess."

Yeah, okay, so Santana really should have seen that coming.  The knowledge that she allowed herself to walk into Quinn's trap only serves to spark a rage from somewhere deep within that she's almost afraid to tap into.  She's mad at Quinn for making a big deal out of something she has nothing to do with, and she's mad at Quinn for noticing in the first place.  More than that, she's mad at herself for letting this entire situation get out of hand.  She's better than this.  She's stronger than this.  And this is not going to be where she falls--not to Quinn Fabray.

She's kept her cool until now, but Quinn needs to know just how dangerous she is, and before either of them really have time to process what's happening, Santana's got Quinn shoved against the wall of lockers.

"Don't talk about shit you don't understand," Santana says, her voice low, and she lets every ounce of venom she has enter her words.

It works, because even though she's obviously trying so hard to hide it, Quinn's afraid.  They've stuck to snide banter so far, because no shots had been fired, but Quinn's playing with fire now, and she needs to know she's about to get burned.

Except then Brittany's right there, and it cools Santana's rage to a low simmer, and so in Quinn's continued silence, Santana pushes away from the lockers and goes back to her own, shrugging into her shirt with stiff movements.

From behind her, she can hear Brittany telling Quinn to, "try not to take it personally.  Santana's just intense," which is probably the nicest way she's ever been described.  "Oh, I know!" Brittany continues.  "We're doing a girl's night on Saturday, why don't you come?"

"No, Britt, that's not--" Santana starts to protest--because leave it to Brittany to accidentally invite a third to their alone time--but the suspicious look in Quinn's eye stops her.  Instead she just says, in a clear voice addressing the entire squad.  "That's right.  Bonding retreat Saturday night.  Brittany's house."

The room erupts in murmurs of excitement, and Santana returns without another word to gathering her things and preparing to leave.  She hovers by the door, waiting for Brittany to finish dressing.  She's talking to Quinn, but they're too far away for Santana to hear what they're saying, but she forces herself to look away when Brittany embraces the shorter blonde in a quick hug.

It's not until Brittany's standing in front of her with her pinky held out that she makes eye contact.  And with a small smile, Santana hooks her own pinky around Brittany's and she almost feels normal.

*****

She's not sure how she manages to keep herself from dragging the eyeliner across her cheeks at the sharp knock on her door, but she does, and she's not sure why Judy bothers with the knock in the first place because, sure enough...

"Hey, Mom," she says to her mother's reflection in her vanity mirror when her door opens and her mother steps inside.

There's only the _illusion_ of privacy, really.

"Just thought I'd come check on you," Judy says, taking a few tentative steps into the room.  "That's a beautiful dress."

"Thank you," Quinn says, finishing up her makeup.

"How do you feel?  Are you nervous?" her mother asks, sitting gingerly on the edge of Quinn's bed and sipping delicately from the glass of wine in her hand.  Quinn's starting to worry it's going to permanently fuse with her mother's flesh and just become a part of her body.

"Well, I wasn't until you asked that," Quinn says, and it's mostly true.  Going out with Finn feels very much like an extension of going to school; it calls for a certain set of theatrics, and as long as she sticks to her script, there shouldn't be any problem.  The insinuation that it's an event that should be fretted over...

Her mother doesn't apologize, though.  Instead, she just kicks Quinn's anxiety higher.  "You know this isn't like securing general popularity," Judy warns.

She knows this.  Endearing herself to the general student body basically boils down to producing an air of unattainability, which is done through appearance as opposed to interaction.  This date, on the other hand, will require her to be more personable without crossing over the line into desperate, and she knows that it's a completely different performance.  Talking about it, however, isn't going to help anything.

"I know," she tells her mom with a calculated gentle firmness.  She wants Judy to know that she's ready for this, but she's also wary of outright offending her mother, and so, much like the rest of her life, Quinn finds herself toeing a line so fine it's practically invisible.

She stands up from her vanity and moves to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room, inspecting the way her dress hangs from her body and making sure it hugs and drapes in all the right places.

She's distracted, though, because she can see her mother approaching in the reflection.

"You need to give them just enough promise," Judy explains, tugging the collar of Quinn's dress down a few centimeters.  "Not a guarantee," she continues, catching Quinn's eye seriously.  "Just enough so he _thinks_ he might have a chance if only he tries hard enough."

She feels exposed and uncomfortable, and she knows it's stupid.  It's not like her mother has dropped the neckline so far that she'd even be considered immodest by anyone--Quinn's just not accustomed to having any amount of cleavage on display, no matter how small, and she has to stop herself from readjusting her dress.

Her mother's just trying to help--in her own way, anyway.

Judy moves slowly behind Quinn, making small adjustments to her appearance: pulling her shoulders back, and arranging her hair delicately across her shoulders.  "There, see?" she says, admiring her handy-work.  "He won't be able to take his eyes off you," she concludes, which sounds to Quinn like code for, "Even you couldn't mess this up, now."  After all, if he's distracted by the external, maybe he won't notice anything else.

She sighs and reminds herself to be grateful, because her mother is only _trying_ to help her achieve the only goals Quinn's ever voiced.

 It's why she sounds genuine, even to herself, when she says, "Thanks, Mom."  There's no time to have a moment, though, because the doorbell interrupts them.

"Good luck," Judy says as they leave Quinn's room and move down the hallway.  Quinn's halfway down the stairs when Judy adds a quick, "Remember that they like to chase."

Quinn stops at the bottom step and turns to nod at her mother in acknowledgment, and with a final, deep breath, moves to answer the door.

*****

Finn regrets going to dinner before the movie.  The mostly silent car ride to Breadstix was bad enough, but soon after they're seated, it becomes painfully clear that he has no idea how to fill the time, and at least the movie would have given them something to talk about.  Instead, he's stuck shooting in the dark, which is only made worse by the fact that he can't even rely on mutual acquaintances to discuss, since Quinn's only been here a week.

And those are just the problems that he was prepared for.  Throw in the way Quinn looks tonight, and--

He'll be lucky to concentrate on anything tonight.

He can't tell if his brain is working too quickly or too slowly, and as he's trying to come up with something to say to her after their host takes their drink orders, she picks up the menu, starts to flick through the pages, and asks, "What is your family like?" in the most off-hand way possible.

It feels strangely like a dismissal, even though it's an invitation.

It's easy, though, to talk about himself, especially since his sensitive sob story about his dead dad and single mom usually earns him points with girls, even if he can't figure out what to do afterward.  That's later, though, and it's a good starting point, so he tells her all about what it was like growing up with an absent father figure.

"In a way it's good, though, you know?" he explains--twenty minutes later, after their food's been delivered--and he can't tell if her exaggerated attention is genuine, or if she's mocking him somehow, but he presses on anyway, because there's no going back at this point.  "He died a hero, so that's what he'll always be.  I'll never have to be disappointed in him and he'll never have to be disappointed in me."

He thinks he's being deep, and while he still can't tell if Quinn's behavior is genuine, he's decided to take her show of thoughtfulness as she chews her salad at face value.

"What about your mom?" she asks after a few silent seconds.

He tries _so hard_ not to grin, because this is exactly where he wants the conversation to go, but he can feel his cheek twitch despite himself.  This is what gives him a sense of sensitivity, after all, and girls want someone that can both protect them and understand them, which is why the fact that he was raised by a single mom makes him so appealing.

According to Puck, anyway.

He takes a moment to swallow his mouthful of spaghetti before he answers, dabbing politely at his face with the napkin he laid across his lap.

"I think my mom's a hero, too.  She raised me without any help, and I know how hard that must have been for her," he says gently, hoping to appeal to every girl's natural pull toward maternity.  "I also think it gave me a perspective on women that maybe other guys don't get, you know?  Like... I was raised by a really strong woman, and so I think I have more respect for women in general."

The fear that rises in his throat at Quinn's expression is instantaneous and causes him to wipe his palms along his pants.  Her brow is furrowed, and she looks offended, and he goes back over the conversation in search of where he went wrong.  He's about to start apologizing without knowing why just to buy himself some time, but she shakes her head as though to clear it, and it's the second time he thinks she's swallowed an initial reaction to tell him something different.

He has _no idea_ what to make of her.

Quinn's face relaxes back into pleasantness, and she even offers him a smile, and so he decides it's ultimately not worth worrying about.  She's smiling across the table from him, and that's all that really matters.

"You're right.  It must have been very hard for her," she says with empathy.  "It must have been very lonely."

He sighs, and he's actually thankful that the waiter brings him the check at that moment.  It gives him a few minutes of fiddling with his wallet to sort out whether or not to talk about what's going on at home.  Good relationships are based on that kind of support, though, right?  And so it's got to be a good sign that he already feels comfortable enough opening up to her this way.

"I guess that's probably true," he concedes.  "She's started dating again, though, and that's been hard."

"For her or for you?"

He doesn't understand what's happening.  If he didn't know any better, he'd say she's challenging him, but he can't, for the life of him, figure out why.  What was there to challenge in any part of the conversation so far?

"Both, I guess," he says, because it's true.  "I guess guys aren't lining around the block to take out a single mom with a teenage son," he explains.  "But it's also weird just seeing her with anybody."

Quinn shakes her head quickly and Finn prepares himself for an argument--starts running through responses to possible statements before she even opens her mouth--but all she says is, "I guess I can see where that would be hard."

The waiter finally comes back with his change which works as a convenient enough closer to the conversation.  This probably wouldn't be the time to delve into how much he hates who his mom's dating because of his son.  Burt's an okay guy, he guesses, but Kurt...

"Anyway," he says, plastering on what he hopes is his most charming smile and retrieves the fake I.D. he procured for Quinn yesterday from his back pocket.  "This is for you.  You're going to need it to get into the movie tonight."

Her expression shifts into amusement, and Finn can feel himself relax.  Maybe he can save this date, after all.

"This looks nothing like me," she says.

"Close enough," he says with a shrug as he stands up and offers her his hand to help her in turn.  "They won't look too hard."

"Okay," she says, taking his hand and following him to the car.  "But if you get me in trouble, my father owns guns."

It never occurs to him that he still doesn't know anything about Quinn.

*****

The movie is a good idea, despite the initial hiccup that came when Quinn found out they were going to see the latest gore-fest instead of the romantic comedy.  Finn still can't figure out why she made such a show of being displeased with his choice for the night, since Quinn's become increasingly relaxed the further into the film they get.

He knew it was a risk at the time.  There are only two real date movie genres, and those are romance and horror, but Puck told him that if a romantic comedy was playing that he should always opt for that.  It shows the girl that he's willing to torture himself for her.  On the other hand, horror films supposedly mimic the symptoms of arousal, and offer a convenient excuse to put his arm around Quinn.

Plus, it's also something he enjoys, so he took the risk.

It pays off, though, because twenty minutes into the movie, he manages to slip his arm around her shoulders without protest as the music hitches and the zombies are revealed.  He tries to be covert about looking at her, but after a few minutes, he realizes there's no point since she's clearly engaged in the movie.  Pleased with his decision, he settles back into his seat to watch the film, content in the knowledge that she'll at least let him put his arm around her.

It doesn't last long, though.  As the action picks up and it becomes apparent that the zombie is about to infect one of the peripheral characters, Quinn shifts to the edge of her seat.  He's not sure if she moved away from him intentionally, or if she's just really that into the movie, but then the protagonist decapitates the zombie in question and Quinn cheers along with half of the theater.

He'd be praising his luck for managing to impress such a cool girl, but as the film continues and they share enthusiastic glances at each more gruesome death scene, he starts to get the feeling that this isn't quite a date.  He doesn't know, exactly, when the mood shifted, but as Quinn throws a fist in the air and yells in delight as the female love interest gets impaled, it feels more like he's hanging out with Puck than trying to win over a girlfriend.

*****

She's surprised by how much she's enjoying herself, by the end of the night.

Not that Quinn had high hopes to begin with, but after a decent--but so boring--dinner in which she successfully managed to keep his attention off of her as a person as she sat through his entitled complaining about his mother's dating life, she was fully prepared for sitting through some mindless comedy he _thought_ she would like.

The movie they actually saw was much better, if a little formulaic.  There had been an awkward moment in line where she felt she had to make a show about pandering to male tastes, but she thinks she played it off as teasing, so she's not too concerned.

But somewhere along the way she forgot that she was on a date.  There was a moment in the theater when he had slipped his arm around her and she tried to let it be okay, but... well, they _both_ got into the movie, and the _date_ aspect of the night seemed to disappear entirely.

Which is how she finds herself doubled over with laughter as she and Finn reminisce about some of the more creative gore scenes as he escorts her to her door.

"I thought you didn't like horror movies," Finn says when they've reached her door, and the mood sobers significantly, because now he's looking at her in that way that...

She doesn't know, exactly.  She just knows that it's uncomfortable.

She pushes it away, though, because right now she has a job to do, and so she gives him her best smile and says, "Well, I couldn't make it _that_ easy for you."

"Playing hard to get?" he asks, and he smiles crookedly, as though he already knows he's won.

She doesn't know how to answer the question, though, so she just shrugs coyly.

"I can work with that," he says, mirroring her shrug and takes a step toward her.

She knows, before he even starts to lean in, that he's going to kiss her, and her brain works in overdrive.  Her first instinct is to pull away, but she remembers that this is exactly what's supposed to happen--what's expected of her--so she forces herself to stand still.

She doesn't know where it comes from, but something in the back of her mind tells her to, "man up," as he leans in, and while it's a little disconcerting, it works--she has a job to do, after all--and she tilts her head to the right just in time, and it's that thought that makes kissing him _almost_ okay.

It's his hand.  It feels massive against the side of her face, and when it slides down to her neck, she wonders how little pressure he'd have to exert to snap her neck.  Her head is tilted back at an uncomfortable angle, and he makes her feel overwhelmingly small.

He's chaste and respectful, though, and she's thankful for small favors.  He doesn't try to shove his tongue down her throat--though, she's sure that's coming in the near future--and the kiss itself doesn't last longer than a few seconds.

She always thought she'd establish more significance to her first kiss than this.

He tells her goodnight and heads back to his car, and her parents are waiting for her when she steps inside.

"He seems like a good boy," her father says, taking a pull from the tumbler in his hand.  He's got the flush of a pleasant drink, and she thinks he's probably on his second.  "He doesn't seem too... pushy."

"Yes, he seems very respectful," Judy agrees.

"Were you guys spying on me?"

"Just looking out for you," Russell corrects and steps forward, pulling her into a one-armed hug.  "I'm glad you've finally come around," he whispers in her ear.  "We were getting worried about you."

She doesn't actually know what he's talking about--and she suspects that he doesn't either--but it's just the latest in a long line of throwaway comments that seem to imply that there's something inherently less-than about Quinn.  It's okay, though, because she's learned how to survive off backhanded compliments and focuses on the positive half.  She's _come around_.

"Thanks, Dad," she says, and he steps away from her, and he's smiling in that happy drunk way he does when he remembers to moderate himself.

He leaves shortly after, when it becomes obvious that her mother wants to have a private word, and he raises a glass to both of them with an acknowledgment of, "ladies," as he retreats to the den.

"You did well," Judy says, stepping forward and placing a cold hand against Quinn's cheek.  "He's going to be easy to control."

Quinn shakes her head, because she doesn't quite understand how her mother could know that.  From where Quinn was standing, it seemed like she played a fairly passive role and that Finn controlled the entire interaction.

"How do you know that?"

"Please.  Tasteful, closed-mouth kiss?  Not even an innuendo of something more?  He's confident enough to try, but he's afraid of pushing your limits.  You've got him right where you want him, Honey.  Keep it up," Judy explains.

Strangely, it doesn't make Quinn feel any more powerful.

*****

All in all, the slumber party--might as well call it what it is; "bonding retreat," her ass--is a good idea.  After all, a few of them are going to be tossed around in the air by the rest of them, and that not only requires skill, but trust.  And the only way to build trust is to, well... spend time together.

So, while, yes, Santana would rather be spending some alone time with Brittany--especially after spending the entire previous night with Puck--this is a not altogether unpleasant alternative.

The only anomaly seems to be Quinn, even if she can't quite put her finger on why her presence feels so foreign.  She's been a good sport, considering she doesn't know any of these girls from Adam, and she's participated in every whim they've had.

Maybe that's why it feels so strange, though, because it's almost like Quinn doesn't have a self--just a blank slate to be imprinted upon by the requirements of her surroundings.

She watches from where she's sitting at the head of Brittany's bed as the girls finish up Quinn's makeover--whatever, she looks exactly the same--and move onto the next.  Regardless of Santana's own suspicion of Quinn, she has to admit that the blonde is fitting in with the rest of the squad.  It's ultimately a good thing.  Quinn's clearly an asset, even if Santana will never admit that out loud.

She can hear Quinn thank Brittany for having them all over, and then she's sitting next to Santana, because really, there's nowhere else for her to go.

It's awkward, because the only person Santana can sit in comfortable silence with is Brittany, and Quinn is very decidedly not the same, so when it becomes apparent that Quinn isn't going to say anything, Santana does.

"Glad to see you're making friends."

"Are you really?" Quinn asks, and despite the smoothness of her voice, Santana thinks she can sense a trace of pain underneath the indifference.

It's true that Santana's been generally less than welcoming toward Quinn, but it's not like that's unexpected.  There's just something suspicious about someone so hollow, and it's not like their passive-aggressive banter hasn't suggested a baseline threat level, anyway.  On the other hand, Quinn is one of the more skilled athletes on the squad, and if she's going to trust any of her teammates to Quinn's reliability,, she's going to have to soften her edges a bit.

"Yeah, I am," she insists, with a small half-shrug.  "It's good for the squad."

Quinn nods once in curt understanding and they both fall silent for a few minutes.  Santana can feel the other girl watching her, and so she purposely keeps her eyes trained on the rest of her squad across the room.

"Can I ask you a question?" Quinn asks, and her voice is different, somehow.  It's quiet, and it's probing, and it has Santana looking over in genuine curiosity.  "What's up with you and Brittany?"

It's a question she gets a lot, so she's not completely surprised by it.  She times herself--waits a beat so that her response won't come off as defensive--and asks, "What do you mean?" without making eye contact.

Quinn's hesitation suggests her own level of discomfort with the topic, and it's that unease that has Santana wondering if maybe she's been wrong about Quinn since day one.  She still puts out a disjointed energy, and Santana doesn't like it, but if Quinn was _actually_ malicious, Santana's pretty sure she'd be delighting in her invasion of privacy.

Then again, maybe Quinn's just a really good actress.

"You two seem very... affectionate," Quinn eventually clarifies, tracing the swirly patterns on Brittany's bedspread with her fingertip.

The gentle way Quinn probes is a marked change from the way she's been going about gathering information.  Santana's mostly seen her assert her entitlement, and so this change of tactic throws her.

Still, this conversation never _really_ changes from person to person, which is how the half shrug and casual, "And?" come out on autopilot.  The more insignificant she keeps this, the less likely it is that Quinn will push.

"I don't know," Quinn says, and Santana can see her shrug from the corner of her eye.  "You just seem really close.  I just thought there might be a story, there."

Santana lets herself look at Quinn head on, but Quinn's looking at the girls across the room, where Brittany's applying the finishing touches to another girl's face, and Santana revisits their confrontation in the locker room earlier that week.  She had taken a jab at Quinn's sexuality, but she hadn't been serious--she'd caught Quinn staring at Puck, after all; then again, she'd also caught her staring at Brittany.  There's something about Quinn's forced nonchalance, however, that has Santana rethinking her own assumptions about the blonde's sexuality.

Perhaps, instead of a rival, Quinn could be a kindred spirit?

It's what gives her pause and makes her consider actually telling Quinn the truth.  After a year of skirting around the subject with literally everyone in her life, it might be nice to know somebody who's hiding in the same kind of way.

But then she remembers there's a _reason_ she keeps her relationship private, and that she can't risk it--especially not on someone whose motives she can't make clear heads or tails of, and so she confirms that there's, "No story to tell," with enough finality to signal the end of the conversation, but without the venom to signal aggression.  "We just grew up together is all."

It works, she guesses, because Quinn just nods.  Santana will never know if she had a follow-up, though, because Brittany bounces over seconds later, effectively ending the conversation.

*****

"I think I actually want to go to the game," Rachel tells Kurt as she pulls her World History book from her locker.

The question had been, "What would I have to do to get you to go with me?" so, of course, her willing compliance is met with suspicion.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with a certain blonde cheerleader, would it?"

She's half-expecting the question, because Kurt's been making allusions to a "surprise crush" of Rachel's since last Wednesday, but this is the first time he's suggested his prime suspect.

Rachel neither confirms nor denies his suspicion, because she generally doesn't like lying, but she also wants to keep her options open, and just asks him if the only reason he wants to go "has anything to do with a certain quarterback?"

He just shrugs nonchalantly, because that's just who Kurt is, and reminds her that he, "enjoys examining the male body in all of its forms."

Rachel doesn't have much to respond with that isn't an eye roll, but she's saved the trouble when they're interrupted.  Though, "saved" might not be the right word, here.

"Well, if it isn't Sticks and Man-Hands," Santana drawls from over Rachel's shoulder, and she turns and follows Kurt's gaze to come face to face with Santana and her Band of Evil Cheerleaders.  Santana's called them a lot of names over the years, but these are two of her favorites.  Rachel's not entirely sure why she's stuck with calling Kurt "Sticks," though.  If she remembers correctly, it's a reference to the literal meaning of _faggot_ , but Rachel's not sure why Santana doesn't just use the slur.

"What do you want, Santana?" Rachel asks as neutrally as she can.

"Now is that any way to greet old friends?" Santana responds, placing a hand on her chest and feigning injury.  "I'm hurt."

Rachel's never understood this particular bullying tactic--initiating an insult followed by feigned innocence--as though anyone's actually dumb enough to succumb to it.  Is Rachel just supposed to forget that Santana just referred to her as "Man-Hands?"

"God, you're so easy," Santana sneers at Rachel's continued silence.  "You know, if you didn't take yourself so seriously, people might actually like you more.  Isn't that right, Barbie?" she asks, turning to look at Quinn.

It was easy enough to ignore Quinn's presence when she was silent, but now that Santana's passed the ball to her--and really, the fact that Santana's deferring to her at this point is _not_ a good sign; it indicates Quinn's approved acceptance into the group--it's almost as though Rachel can't _help_ but lock eyes with her.

Foolish as it seems, Rachel doesn't actually see it coming until she sees Quinn glance quickly at Santana and then over the expectant faces of approximately one quarter of the Cheerios.  There's a moment when Quinn gives her a look of wide-eyed panic--though it's so fast that it's possible Rachel imagines it--and then it's as though Quinn slips into her best impersonation of Santana.

"Yeah, Beak-Nose.  Calm down," Quinn says, and then she and Santana and the rest of them are gone, snickering to themselves about how _easy_ Rachel is, and she wonders if they even live in the same reality.

It's mild, as far as insults go, and so that's not what gets under Rachel's skin.  No, what bothers Rachel is that everything about Quinn's behavior feels tense and forced.  Even that would be fine, though, if she thought for a second that Quinn recognized it herself.  What really bothers Rachel isn't the fact that Quinn is lying to everyone around her--that's just a defense mechanism to get through high school--but that she's also lying to herself.


	4. Sic Transit Gloria...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: sexual assault
> 
> This one was hard, you guys.
> 
> Let’s have a conversation about consent for a second, shall we? If there is a “no,” anything that follows is rape. If a person is under the influence of alcohol, they cannot consent, and anything that follows is rape. If a person has to be talked into sex, they don’t want to, and whatever follows is rape. If a person begrudgingly relents based on a condition that is then violated by the other party, what follows is rape. That’s what this is, and we’re all going to call it that. However, I will largely not be dealing with this in an after-school special way. Please be aware that this is not an attempt to normalize this behavior, but I am rather making a commentary on the pervasiveness of rape culture (it even exists in Glee canon, and no one bats an eye). I have spoken with several survivors (and am one, myself), and my general understanding is that everyone deals with their situation differently, and sometimes, not doing much is a valid choice depending on the circumstances. Please remember, however, that just because the character is not dealing with this in a direct way, this does not negate the fact that this is a rape. It will still be a rape even if it’s ignored for ten chapters.

Finn's never been good at math.

He makes a good show of it for Quinn—he thinks, anyway—but after fifteen minutes, his brain feels like mush. When is he ever going to need to know this much about triangles in his life?

Of course, his concentration isn't at all helped by the fact that he's currently alone in his room—on his bed!—with Quinn. He's lucky to be able to form complete sentences in this situation, much less make heads or tails of the Pythagorean theorem. What's a "theorem," anyway?

"I need a break," Finn says abruptly, halfway through a problem. He'll have no idea what he was doing when he comes back to it, but he doesn't really care. He sets his pencil between the pages of his geometry book and tosses both it and his notebook on the floor, stretching out on his bed and looking at Quinn expectantly.

She only says, "Okay," without looking up from her own homework, though, and when it becomes apparent that Quinn has no desire to pause her own work, Finn sits up.

"Is it cool if Puck comes over?" he asks, checking his phone and finding a text from Puck.

"I guess?" she says, finally looking up with a vaguely confused expression before going back to whatever problem she's working on.

The questioning intonation throws him, but taking Quinn at face value has worked for him so far, so he just responds to Puck's text and invites him over. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Puck is letting himself into Finn's room with a six-pack of Keystone tucked under his arm.

"Well, hey, Pretty Lady," he greets Quinn as he tosses a can to Finn.

It's a comment that sparks more jealousy in Finn than he wants to admit; it's not like Puck is flirting with Quinn in any serious way. Finn _trusts_ Puck, and he knows that despite all of his bravado, Puck would never actually do anything to hurt him, and this is probably just his way of attempting to welcome Quinn into their circle.

So Finn settles with tossing a half-hearted, "Hey, man, that's my girlfriend," over his shoulder as he turns on his X-Box.

He waits for any sign of protest from Quinn. It's not like they've talked about and defined what they are to each other, but she only arches a challenging eyebrow in Puck's direction, so Finn supposes she's on board.

"Alright, alright, I was just being nice," Puck says, setting the six-pack next to the bed and holding his hands up defensively. "Don't get all weird."

And just like that, Finn feels on top of the world. He's got confirmation that Puck isn't actually after his girlfriend, and he has a girlfriend at all.

So he shrugs off Puck's defensiveness and tells him to stop being a jerk before tossing him the spare controller with an invitation to play Call of Duty.

"Yeah, alright, man," Puck says, taking a seat at the foot of the bed next to Quinn and offering her a beer.

She basically just stares at him, though, and while Finn's smart enough to recognize that Quinn doesn't seem to care much for Puck, he's not sure why. It's not like Puck has ever been anything but nice to her. So, as the game loads, Finn decides to find a way to get his girlfriend and his best friend to spend more time together.

*****

Her first pep rally goes off without a hitch, and Quinn's _almost_ reveling in social superiority as she follows Santana and Puck out of the gym with Finn's arm wrapped securely around her shoulders.

That's something she's having to get used to more quickly than she'd like, and she admittedly has to remind herself over and over again that Finn is exactly the kind of boy that she set out to couple with. She _should_ be ecstatic, and she can't figure out why she's just not.

"Dude, we're gonna kill this game," Finn's practically yelling next to her, clearly talking to Puck up ahead.

Puck doesn't respond, though, because Santana stops them when something catches her eye across the parking lot, and she snarls out a, "Perfect," in that maniacally gleeful tone Quinn's only heard her use while tormenting one of the geeks.

Quinn's gaze follows Santana's pointed finger to land on Kurt and Rachel coming out of the side entrance of the auditorium, obviously having just skipped the pep rally.

She hears Santana tell Puck to "keep them busy," before she's off on a jog toward the convenient store across the street. Quinn's not sure if she's supposed to follow her or not, but it turns out not to matter as she's pulled along the parking lot after Puck and Finn.

"Well, look who missed the festivities!" Puck calls out with false joy as he approaches Kurt and Rachel, looking between them and rubbing his hands together in delight. "Sure is a shame you guys had to miss the pep rally."

"What do you want, Puck?" Kurt asks, keeping his tone neutral, though his body language screams defensiveness.

"Now, Puck, I don't think they missed it on accident," Finn says, and the line between Finn's understanding and general simplicity is so fine that Quinn honestly can't figure out if he's being genuine or if he's playing along with Puck's set-up.

It doesn't matter, though, because while Kurt's attention is bouncing back and forth between the two boys—anticipating an attack from either or both of them—Rachel is just staring at her as though Quinn has _any_ control over either of them.

Puck brings a hand to his chest dramatically and says, "I'm hurt, you guys. Where's the school spirit? Where's the love?"

"Yeah, you know, that pep rally really would have fixed the participation problem you have," Finn says, stepping closer to Kurt. "It really promoted a sense of togetherness and brotherhood, wouldn't you say, Puck?"

"Oh, definitely," Puck agrees, closing the distance between himself and Kurt. "That's a nice jacket," he says, fingering the lapel on Kurt's coat. "You should probably take it off."

It's only when Puck shoves him—gently for Puck, but Kurt has to take a few steps back in order to stay on his feet—that Rachel's attention is finally torn from Quinn and onto the confrontation between the boys that's very quickly turning physical.

"No," Rachel protests, but it falls on deaf ears as Puck explains that Kurt can either do this the easy way or the hard way, and Quinn watches as Puck all but ignores the half-hearted punches Rachel's landing on his shoulder.

Kurt does it, though. He takes his jacket off and resigns himself to _their_ fate, and Quinn is so caught up in the spectacle that she doesn't notice Santana's return until she's pushing a fresh red slushie into Quinn's hand.

"We don't really can girls here," Santana's explaining to her in a low voice. "But that's why slushies are a thing," she says, arching a challenging eyebrow at Quinn and nodding vaguely in Rachel's direction, and it takes Quinn a few moments to realize she's expected to participate in this grotesquely outnumbered scene.

Name calling is one thing. She _knows_ it's not harmless—more intimately than she ever plans on admitting to anyone again, ever—but it's also just a part of high school, and so Quinn's mostly been able to reconcile the way she's been treating Rachel with her conscience. Quinn's never instigated any of it, and she's fairly sure Rachel recognizes that she's just following an unspoken social contract. What Santana's suggesting, however, is on a completely different level. She's asking Quinn to violate Rachel's person in a way she's _sure_ she's not comfortable with.

She hears Kurt's body land in the dumpster off to her left and registers Puck's and Finn's laughter, and the only thing Quinn can do is stare at Santana in disbelief.

"Look, you wanna run with the cool crowd?" Santana asks, her patience obviously waning. "This. Is what. We do."

The drink in her hand is cold and makes her palm itch as beads of condensation start to form between her fingers. She's vaguely aware of an internal timer on the scene, and she knows she's running out of time. This _isn't_ what she wants to do, but she has to; because _people are watching_ , and the longer she delays, the more suspicious she's going to look.

She takes a deep breath and strides purposefully across the parking lot to where Rachel is trying to help Kurt out of the dumpster. It helps, a little, that Rachel's not paying attention to her. Quinn's not sure she could go through with this if she had to look at her.

Except Santana's right behind her, and asking Rachel why she "couldn't even be bothered to wear school colors," and instead of Rachel focusing her attention on Santana, her eyes lock with Quinn's and Quinn almost forgets how to breathe.

But then she hears Santana say, "I think we can fix that," and the imaginary timer in her head goes off, and whatever moment she's having with Rachel abruptly ends as Quinn jerks her arm in Rachel's general direction, and tosses the empty cup away as though it were scalding.

It's half-hearted, and everyone knows it. Only half of it made it onto Rachel at all, and it's confined to below the neck, but the fact that she completed the act is enough for her new friends to accept her, and for Rachel to shut down completely.

As Santana quietly congratulates her and jogs off to where the boys are gleefully retreating, Quinn watches Rachel's lips shift into a tight line as she maintains eye contact. Quinn understands the implied message in Rachel's subtle chin lift loud and clear:

_You cannot break me._

And Quinn's... _relieved_.

She opens her mouth to speak, but she knows there's nothing to say. Any chance of a friendship she might have had with Rachel—no matter how small—is gone, and Quinn knows she destroyed it.

She thinks she says, "I'm sorry," but she can't be sure of her voice's reliability, and Rachel gives no indication that she hears her. She can't stay here, though, and so she turns helplessly away to catch up with her friends.

*****

"Why are we here, again?" Kurt asks, as though he _wasn't_ the one with the initial idea.

"Because you practically begged me to come with you," Rachel says, her eyes trained toward the field where the football game is happening.

"Unnecessarily," he points out, as though that has anything to do with the argument at hand. "But why are we here after what happened this afternoon?"

She shrugs and continues to refuse to meet his gaze.

"You totally just want to watch Quinn bounce around in her Cheerio uniform," he says, and if he hadn't previously alluded to his suspicions a few days earlier, his explicitness might have surprised her.

Instead, she just turns to him slowly and points out that he's, "been staring at Finn for the last two hours." She's deflecting, and she knows it, but she hopes that he doesn't.

No such luck, though, because while Kurt isn't the brilliant philosopher he thinks comes along with being the only openly queer kid in school, he's still smarter than most of their peers. It really doesn't come as a shock when he dismisses her point entirely.

"We already know I like boys," he says. "That's not news. What's way more interesting is your sudden interest in girls."

"I'm not gay," she says simply, holding his gaze long enough to prove she's not trying to dodge him.

"So you haven't been fixated on the newest blonde addition to the Cheerios since before the game even started?" he pushes.

She sighs and turns away from him, because she doesn't want to be having this conversation. She's not exactly ashamed of what's going on with her—regardless of how little it makes sense—but Rachel knows that part of this isn't hers to talk about. Rachel doesn't know what she is, because she just can't figure out Quinn, and that's not any of Kurt's business.

"I'm not having this conversation," she says, and she half-heartedly hopes he'll let it go. She knows it's an empty wish, though.

"I'll take your complete lack of denial as an affirmative," he says smugly, and luckily, she never has to know if he had a follow-up, because she's up with the rest of the crowd in their excitement as Finn tosses the ball down to Puck. It sails smoothly into his arms and he sprints the last few yards into the end zone, and one pathetic play later sees McKinley its first win of the season.

But, of course, as the clock runs down and the cheering calms, Kurt's hand is on her arm and demanding her attention.

"Okay, look, sexuality questions aside, why would you even be interested in Quinn after what she did to you today?" he asks, and it's possibly the most hypocritical thing he's ever said, and she wastes zero time pointing that fact out to him.

"Why do you keep crushing on Finn even though he repeatedly tosses you in trash cans?"

Kurt doesn't have an immediate comeback for that question, and instead looks across the field where the football team is finishing up their parade of good sport hand shakes, and when Rachel follows suit, her eyes immediately find Quinn's, and their ability to lock eyes from this distance and in this much confusion is jarring.

It's jarring, because the way Quinn's looking at her makes her feel more connected to anyone than she's ever felt, and for _just_ a second, she thinks she sees the person she met in the auditorium before school started.

Except then it's broken when Quinn's head gets pulled back into a kiss with Finn that doesn't look even a little comfortable, and it snaps them all out of their melancholy.

"Whatever, I guess people don't always make sense," Kurt says, looking away from the scene on the field and back to Rachel in one of the the most overt admissions that he _doesn't know everything_ she's ever seen from him.

"Yeah," she agrees, turning away and heading down the stairs. "Let's get out of here."

"Don't think I'm letting you off the hook," he says as they exit the stadium. "We still have _things_ to discuss."

She just rolls her eyes, though, because it's not like she has much more to tell.

*****

Santana's reached that pleasant level of drunkenness where she feels warm, but not out of control; though with Brittany sitting as close as she is, that could change any minute, now.

The party was inevitable. Whether they won or lost, it was the first game of the season, so there was either going to be a victory party or a consolation party. Santana genuinely doesn't have a preference, because either one offers her a social opportunity to be seen with Puck _and_ enough confusion to get some time in with Brittany, since alcohol offers the perfect alibi for her curious peers.

Plausible deniability, she thinks it's called.

She and Brittany probably would have sneaked away by now, but Quinn won't stop watching them. It'd be annoying, if Quinn were sober, but Puck's been replacing her drink every time it gets low, and so Santana's at least entertained by watching Quinn's gaze shift from curious to confused. It's almost like the drunker she gets, the less she understands the scene in front of her.

Not that Santana can blame her. For all intents and purposes, she and Puck appear the epitome of teenage heterosexual love; at least, in this particular moment in time. She's stretched across the couch in Brittany's den curled up in Puck's arm, but the keen observer—or drunk Quinn—can also see the subtle game of footsie she's playing with Brittany on the other side of her. Quinn's gaze keeps sliding along the length of the couch, and Santana's almost certain she's trying and failing to reconcile the two messages.

She'd also probably be more annoyed if it were anyone but Quinn, but at this point, she thinks Quinn knows more than she's letting on, and the fact that she's not letting on is fairly positive. There's still something strangely _off_ about the newcomer, so Santana doesn't completely trust her and she doesn't think that will ever change; but she's starting to doubt Quinn's level of downright maliciousness.

Puck's chest rumbles with laughter at whatever moronic thing just came out of Finn's mouth—she could never pay attention to them when they get together for longer than about ten minutes—and she's jostled uncomfortably. She takes his engagement with Finn as the opportunity it is, though, and sits up, untangling herself from Puck's arm.

For the life of her, she can't figure out who she's putting on a show for; it's certainly not Quinn, and even though she and Puck have never actually talked about their arrangement, there's always been an unspoken understanding of how they work, so she only performs for him in an abstract way. Still, she makes it a point to lean into him, pressing her breast against his chest as she tells him she's going to go lie down and leaving a wet kiss on his cheek.

It's not like she doesn't know what Puck gets out of their relationship.

Quinn's still watching, and even though she'll probably regret it in the morning, Santana mostly just _doesn't fucking care_. She steps purposefully past Brittany, but lightly drags her nails along her arm and shoulder as she rounds the couch and heads back to Brittany's room. They've known each other and have been doing this long enough that Santana can count the breaths it takes for Brittany to join her. Exactly nine deep, even breaths later and Brittany's bedroom door is opening and she's joining Santana in the bed.

It's familiar and it's routine, and those things are probably supposed to scare her, but it really only makes it better, and when Brittany pulls her on top of her, Santana mostly knows who she is.

*****

It takes all of his willpower for Puck to keep from rolling his eyes at Santana's staged exit. It's not like he hasn't memorized this routine by now, and even if he hadn't, he's definitely aware of the difference in the way Santana acts around him when they're alone and when they're in public. She's always been physically... affectionate, but she only seems to _mean it_ when other people are watching.

It's not even that he minds it, necessarily. Being connected to Santana stabilizes his social clout, and her lack of investment in the relationship makes it easy to entertain his wandering interests. Plus, Puck gets to reap all of the fun benefits of a girlfriend without having to put in any work. Santana comes and goes when she pleases, but she always makes sure that he comes before she goes, and he's not even expected to do anything outside of exist as arm candy at social events.

It's a pretty sweet deal, as far as girlfriends go.

If he had met Santana a year ago, this would all be okay. But he didn't. They've known each other since kindergarten and been friends just as long. It's not like he doesn't know why she disappears with Brittany, or turns it on for an audience. He doesn't even care—not that she's sleeping with Brittany, anyway—but he wishes that she'd talk to him about it.

He doesn't mind being her beard. He wouldn't mind being her beard even if it didn't come with all of the perks that it does, because he's her friend. But they've never had a conversation about it. They've never talked about their arrangement, and so she's let him sit in uncertainty as he watched the girl he thought he loved fall out of love with him. He hoped he was at least important enough to acknowledge the reality of their situation, but the longer Santana goes without telling him the truth, the more he feels used.

So he preoccupies himself with keeping Quinn's drink filled, since he knows such attention would be wasted on his own girlfriend. And even if Quinn doesn't appreciate it, Finn just might. And it's the thought of helping his friend get laid that mostly makes it okay when Brittany follows Santana down the hall. It gives him a nobler purpose, in a way.

His decision to focus on fraternity for the night gets affirmed when Finn stops talking and takes a long look at him after Santana and Brittany excuse themselves. Puck knows that Finn has no clue about the details of his relationship with Santana, but he knows enough to know it's less than perfect. Still, Puck's warmly surprised when Finn flashes that goofy smile he has and challenges Puck to a game of beer pong. His enthusiasm is contagious, and as Finn pulls him off the couch, he thinks Finn's kind of willful ignorance might be just what he needs.

It's not hard for him to pause in the doorway to the kitchen and grab a fresh wine cooler from the chest. It's not hard for him to take the few steps back to the coffee table and swap out Quinn's nearly empty bottle with this new one.

At least this night might be good for someone.

*****

Puck's better than Finn at a lot of things—talking to girls, video games; hell, he even runs faster—but Finn's always been the better thrower, which makes beer pong one of his favorite games to play with Puck.

Unfortunately, beer pong isn't exactly the game you want to be good at. If the entire point of the game is the get hammered, Finn's not sure there are real bragging rights tied to the title of "Beer Pong Champion."

Fortunately, Finn has a head start on the whole, "getting drunk" thing—he's used to Quinn's elusiveness, but she seems even colder than usual, tonight—and so he's not nearly as good as he usually is. Puck's actually managing to keep up with him, which is exactly the opposite of what Finn had in mind when he challenged his friend to a game in the first place. He doesn't exactly _know_ what's going on between Puck and Santana, but he knows it's generally not good, and so when Finn saw the look on Puck's face as Santana left, he was hoping that by beating him at beer pong, he could get Puck drunk enough to take his mind off of it.

But they're both down to three cups, and Puck easily sinks another after asking for a quick rearrangement. They never get to know who the winner would have been, though, because the call comes while Finn downs his penalty drink.

He catches Puck's nod of acknowledgment as he holds a hand up and reaches into his pocket for his phone. Normally, he'd put it on silent and return to the festivities, except it's his mother and he's felt her wrath for ignoring her calls enough times to be adequately afraid of doing so now.

"Hey, mom," he says, keeping the annoyance at her interruption out of his voice. She _knows_ he's celebrating with the team, and so somewhere, underneath the alcohol, he knows that this phone call is important, and it wouldn't do to let his impatience creep in from the start.

"I just had a conversation with Burt," she says, and her voice is so low and deliberate that his heart drops into his stomach.

He makes a noise of acknowledgment, unsure of what kind of response his mother is looking for. It turns out not to matter, though, because she continues anyway.

"What is this about you throwing Kurt into a dumpster this afternoon?"

He fucking _hates_ Kurt. It's bad enough that Finn has to deal with his mom dating again. Despite all of the conversations he's had with her about it—about how she deserves to be happy with someone—it still feels like a betrayal to his father. It's bad enough that he has to deal with his mom getting serious with the father of one of the biggest losers in school. Now he has to deal with the fact that his mother's relationship is dictating his social life.

And even though he can't articulate it, he knows it's fucking Kurt's fault.

He's inevitably fucked, and he knows it, but maybe he can postpone the shit-storm until tomorrow morning (though it might not be any easier to deal with hung over).

"Look, Mom, can we talk about this later, please? I'm with the guys."

"I know exactly where you are, and I also know that you're coming home now," she says shortly before hanging up on him, and he figures he has maybe half an hour to get home before she comes to find him and makes a scene.

He pockets his phone and sighs, shooting Puck an apologetic look.

"Sorry, man, that was my mom. I gotta go," he says, walking around the beer pong table and clasping Puck's hand briefly. "Guess I'd better find Quinn."

"You think that's such a good idea?" Puck asks, pressing his fingers against Finn's chest and halting his progress into the house.

Finn furrows his brow at him in obvious confusion and asks, "What do you mean? I have to go, and I can't just leave her."

Puck removes his hand from Finn's chest only to place it heavily on his shoulder and shakes his head. "Nah, man. You're drunk," he points out, using his free hand to poke Finn in the chest. "And you're about to walk into a battlefield at home," he says, stretching his arm in an arbitrary direction to signal home. "Do you really think you're going to impress her or her father in this state?"

"What other choice do I have?"

"Leave her with me," Puck says with a shrug. "I'll take care of her."

And there it is. Puck's reasoning is perfectly sound, and after a moment of contemplation, Finn smiles at his friend. Leave it to Puck to think of everything and look out for him.

Finn glances through the kitchen window and spots Quinn with a small group of cheerleaders, smiling vaguely at one of them and sipping on a wine cooler and decides that he doesn't particularly want to spoil her fun, anyway. Despite the fact that every boy wants to date her and she's surrounded by other cheerleaders half of the time, Finn's noticed that Quinn still hasn't seemed to form any actual friendships. And if he's honest with himself, his own relationship with her sometimes feels forced.

"Yeah," he says, making up his mind and turning back to Puck. "Tell her I'm sorry and to have a good time."

"Yeah, of course," Puck reassures him, and then Finn starts the death march to his car.

*****

Quinn doesn't like wine coolers. Not that she's a fan of the only present alternative—a cheap light beer of which the boys boast about being able to drink large quantities (like that's even impressive)—but she'd much prefer it over having the force this pink syrupy mess down her throat.

She's around people, though, and that means she has a role to fill. She knows that the drink she chooses says a lot about her personality, and beer is just too harsh and bitter to coincide with the delicate femininity she's so carefully cultivated.

So now she's stuck swallowing this abomination of a drink, which, for a while, seemed to be never-ending. Puck had been very attentive to her beverage needs in the first hour or so of the party, but then Quinn had been distracted by Santana's daring display with Brittany, and she's a little ashamed to admit that she's not sure how much she's had to drink.

And now she's alone, and her bottle is _finally_ empty, and since Finn is presently occupied with Puck, Quinn makes her way into the kitchen where most of the cheerleaders have congregated.

It quickly becomes obvious, however, that Quinn should have found Finn instead of joining her peers as she nudges her way into the circle. The girls are in the middle of what appears to be a grotesque display of body comparison as one after another of her peers dissect themselves into flawed body parts.

She knows she's drunk, and it makes it hard for her to cover the grimace on her face as Lacy pushes angrily against her nose, claiming it's too bulbous (if it is, Quinn hasn't noticed). She doesn't have time to dwell on the flashbacks that particular complaint triggers, however, because Amy's quick to insist that Lacy's nose can't compare to her own waistline. It just exacerbates the problem, though, because this statement is accompanied by Amy pinching the flesh around her hips—as though every girl in the room doesn't have the same type of curves—so hard her cuticles turn white, and Quinn's world spins.

She remembers standing in front of her mirror and pinching her own body—which, back then, really was a vast battleground of valleys and slopes—into unnatural contortions in an attempt to find whatever beauty was supposed to exist in it. These girls have never had to do that, and probably never will. They've never known what it's like to develop an elastic line before the onset of puberty, and they've certainly never been isolated because they weren't _pretty_ enough, and it's hard not to take their discontent personally.

She feels something starting to build inside of her and she's not sure she can keep it from coming out. She wants to scream or hit something, maybe, but she knows she can't do any of those things. She can't do anything at all, and so she excuses herself, half stumbling—she's not sure if it's due to the alcohol or whatever it is she's currently experiencing—down the hall and to the bathroom.

The room tilts uncomfortably and then rights itself again, and Quinn braces herself against the sink, since she's not sure she can handle kneeling for the toilet. It's okay, though, because after a few long moments of staring at the white porcelain against her fingers and focusing on her breathing, she feels the pressure in her stomach ease

When she's sure she's not going to be sick, she turns on the tap and splashes water on her face, hoping the chill will ground her, somehow, but she doesn't recognize herself when she meets her reflection in the mirror. She looks sallow and exhausted, and there's a tension in her eyes she hasn't felt since....

She shakes her head, willing something more familiar to appear in front of her. It backfires, though, because as she stares at her reflection, images of Lucy keep flashing across her vision, and she has to look away before echoes of "Lucy Caboosey" can start ringing in her ears.

Without thinking, she balls her hand up into a fist and brings it down hard against her thigh. The pain is jolting, and it serves to bring her back to the here and now and remind her of who she is. She's Quinn Fabray. She's not Lucy and she never will be again, and it's with that thought that a forced calm washes over her.

It's time to find Finn. She needs to go home.

Puck's waiting outside the bathroom when she comes out, though, and she blinks blearily at him a few times before she realizes that he must have been waiting for her.

"What are you doing? Where's Finn?"

"His mom called," Puck says. "He told me to look out for you."

"He left?" she asks, the information not processing correctly. She practically has Finn wrapped around her finger, and can't figure out why he'd think it's okay to leave her alone at a party.

"Yeah, but I'll take you home when you're ready," he says with a smile on his face, and Quinn doesn't know if he's ignoring her discomfort or simply oblivious to it.

"I'm ready," she says softly but firmly, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, I don't think so," he says, shaking his head, and she can't figure out why he's smiling at her like that. "From what I hear, your folks are sitting on some pretty big sticks, and you're _way_ too drunk to be able to hide it from them."

He's... got a point, but she can't tell him that, and so she just stares him down. The alcohol must lessen the effect, though, because he just holds a hand out to her and asks her if she wants to go lie down.

"Yeah," she says, pushing off from the wall and ignoring his help. She wobbles a little though, and she catches him shake his head in amusement from the corner of her eye.

"Come on," he says, slipping a hand around her shoulders and leading her further down the hall and into what looks like a spare bedroom.

She moves to the far side of the bed, sitting on the edge and keeping her back to him. After a few minutes, she hears the door close and she thinks he's left. She sighs and presses her face into her hands, wondering how she wound up alone and stranded at a party filled with people she doesn't particularly like.

And then she feels the bed dip and a hand slides up her back and to her shoulder, applying enough pressure to ease her down onto the bed. It's hard to tell if she rolls onto her back on her own, or if he does it for her, but her brow furrows angrily when she comes face to face with Puck.

She doesn't get a chance to say anything, though, because his lips are on hers, and his tongue is pushing into her mouth. Her hand presses hard against the flat of his chest, but he only pulls away to rake his eyes over her body.

"No, I can't," she tells him, keeping her fingers pressed to his chest in an attempt to keep him at bay.

"Do you want another wine cooler?" he asks, and she's confused by the question. It doesn't seem relevant.

Again, though, she doesn't get to say anything, because he produces a fresh bottle seemingly by magic and clumsily presses it against her mouth. She inevitably swallows a few gulps and takes it away from him, but his mouth his on her neck as soon as his hands are free.

He barely waits for her to set the bottle on the nightstand before he's on top of her, and... he's heavy. She feels trapped underneath him, and she's afraid he's going to crush her as he settles his body on top of hers. His hands start to travel down her body, and she digs her nails into his shoulders in protest. He must take it for encouragement, though, because the next thing she hears is his zipper and she immediately regrets wearing a skirt to this party.

It's quick, at least, but he's clumsy and not very gentle, and so she's sore by the time he's finished, anyway. Then he rolls off of her, zips himself up, and asks her if she's ready to go home.


End file.
